Split Enz To Release Forenzics Project In 2021

Tim Finn has confirmed a new Split Enz project Forenzics is being worked on for 2022.

Forenzics will feature Finn, Noel Crombie, Eddie Rayner with Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera playing guitar on 10 tracks. Phil produced Split Enz second album ‘Second Thoughts’ in 1976.

Phil Manzanera tells Noise11.com, “What instigated this was I found a rehearsal tape for when Split Enz came to London to record that album. We rehearsed in a rehearsal room for a few days before going into the studio and I found a cassette on top of an amp a couple of years ago. I had it digitized and the sound of it sounded amazing. Everything was incredible. I sent it to Tim and that’s when we reengaged, I guess”.

“It is really an amazing record of that time,” Tim Finn tells Noise11.com. “The cassette Phil is talking about is the only thing in existence of that prior to recording ‘Second Thoughts’. It is the band at the height of its powers smashing through these songs that went on ‘Second Thoughts’ and other songs as well. It is gold”.

Forenzics was planned for 2021 but will now be released in 2022. “It is an album that Warners will release next year now,” Tim says. “It was going to be this year but because of Covid there is a huge worldwide queue on vinyl and we want to put it out on vinyl as well as digital so we are waiting. There will be CD version with 16 tracks and a vinyl version with 11 songs”.

The album uses the DNA on Split Enz to wrap new songs around. Tim says, “Phil, Eddie, Noel, myself are using Split Enz as a starting point, almost sampling ourselves, choosing a piece of music, like ‘Walking Down The Road’ as an example, taking one section of that, 30 seconds, maybe a few bars, and writing a new song over it. That’s how we started”.

Phil says, “I just contributed some guitar to it. Tim and Ed are the producers. They were doing this project, this was a year before Tim and me did ‘Caught By The Heart’. Tim sent me another email saying ‘do you fancy playing some guitars because we found these tracks’ and I must have passed the audition because I played on 10 of them. I am very happy to be working with these guys”.

The ‘Caught From The Heart’ project is the first Tim Finn and Phil Manzanera collaborations since the ‘Second Thought’ album on 1976.

“I don’t speak Spanish but I was able to step inside that world,” Tim Finn says. “I reached out to Phil and asked if he had any slow blues. At the beginning of lockdown everything went into slow motion. He sent through a few things. One was on the first EP called ‘Vamos Despacio’ which is ‘Lets Go Slow’. I stepped inside that world, the slow motion Spanish speaking world as I imagined it”.