No Enz in Sight, Finns Celebrate the Eccentric

Whenever brothers Tim and Neil Finn make music together, strange things happen in the songs: Wild things lurk in wool sheds; mall shoppers with bullets in their hairdos wield credit cards instead of ammunition.

With such a fruitful collective imagination, it’s no wonder that the two seem magnetically drawn to each other as collaborators. The duo has just released “Finn Brothers,” the first album created by the New Zealanders on their own.

“For me, it’s unusual to be able to write with anybody else,” says Neil, 38, sipping a yogurt shake on the patio of a West Hollywood hotel. “But when we’re together, there are a lot more conversational beginnings of songs. And it was a really special time because nobody knew we were making ‘Finn Brothers.’ We just had a private world about it.”

The team first brought its eccentric worldview and dream-pop sensibilities to America in the late ‘70s with the surreal new wave group Split Enz. After the band broke up in 1985, Tim launched a solo career and Neil formed Crowded House, a hit-making group that wound synthesizers around grabby Brit-pop and lyrics full of longing. In 1991, Tim briefly joined Crowded House on its “Woodface” album, which was originally intended as a Finn Brothers record. Crowded House tapered off and officially broke up six weeks ago.

“Finn Brothers” was composed during 10 days at Bethells Beach, near Neil’s Auckland home, and was co-produced by Tchad Blake (of Cibo Matto fame). It was family-tested during their sister’s sheep-shearing blowouts.

The album’s first track, “Talking Sense,” with its line “There’s a wild thing in the wool shed and it’s keeping me awake at night,” was a sure-bet party pleaser, but as Tim, 44, explains, “There’s something more than catchy hooks at work in the tune. The song’s a reference to that rural feeling of isolation and cut-offness.”

The brothers share a fascination with small-town New Zealand, a land of tumultuous beauty where mysticism and the mundane go hand in hand. The setting infuses the album with reckless eccentricity and natural solemnity; it also welcomes the native sounds of the South Pacific.

The brothers searched out traditional Polynesian instruments like the tea-chest bass; on the album, Tim launches into an island chant on the introduction to “Only Talking Sense” and they’ve spliced in a sample of Cook Island’s choir on “Paradise (Wherever You Are).”

Sons of an Irish Catholic mother and a frustrated accountant who had dreamed of being a world-class cricket player, both Finns studied the piano and sang in choir together. Their mother made sure that the house was filled with everything from twee British radio-pop to traditional Irish ballads.

Tim, speaking by phone from his home in Sydney, Australia, says that the brothers’ love of music stems from the parties their parents held at the family homestead.

“We didn’t realize that alcohol was playing a part, but it seemed that music was a catalyst for wild things to happen. We’re a Catholic family and . . . some guy would be in the corner playing the piano . . . and women would start to flirt with priests. It was intoxicating.

“People make the mistake of thinking of a small town as a placid place, but I think David Lynch began to peel that scab,” he continues. “There’s repression and there’s convention, there’s wildness of spirit lurking underneath the surface.”

* The Finn Brothers play Tuesday (sold out) and Wednesday ($20) at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, 8 p.m. (213) 466-1767.