After years flanked by more exuberant band mates, Neil Finn returns to the stage and studio alone

By MICHAEL FITZGERALD

eil Finn celebrated his musical freedom from Crowded House with a paintbrush. After a decade with the group--whose spontaneous pop sold 6 million albums worldwide and drew 150,000 fans to their Sydney Opera House farewell in November 1996--the singer-songwriter escaped to the wild New Zealand coast west of Auckland with artist friend Robert Moore. "It was a delicious feeling," recalls Finn. For 10 days, in the middle of a field, he worked the music industry out of his brain, producing what Moore calls "half a dozen pretty cool little paintings."

It proved a fertile field for Finn. In the volcanic landscape he painted, his creative fire was rekindled; a flame that was first ignited 21 years ago with Split Enz, his brother Tim's pioneering New Zealand band, which mingled the spirit of Lennon and McCartney with New Wave mischief. Painting also gave Finn courage to reveal his true colors as a solo performer. On King Tide, a track he wrote with Moore, he sings: "Make some sense of your life/ Move your hand and make the mark."

The palette of his new CD is, like his paintings, pretty cool. Where Crowded House's rock ditties were lit by a fireside warmth, Try Whistling This (EMI/Parlophone) has a serious case of the blues. With its slow, searching melody, the title track is true to its sardonic name--and, with Finn's plaintive voice, almost unbearably sad. Across the first single Sinner's sinuous soundscape of mellotron and piano, the singer paints himself as a Mr. Melancholy, walking the earth "like some forgotten soldier." Even on the album's bounciest track, the Beatlesque She Will Have Her Way, he sings, "I am heavy and my spirit has died." A sense of mellow introspection prevails. "It's a solo record," says Moore, "so it's all about Neil."

Having long played straight man to his more outgoing band mates, Finn emerged comfortably himself at a recent showcase performance in Sydney. With minimal small talk and a no-nonsense style, his musicianship spoke volumes. Not even a broken guitar strap could unhinge his simple artistry. "I'm enjoying more and more having a guitar in my hand," says Finn, who embarks on an Australian concert tour in July, "and just being on my own on stage."

And true to himself on record. Finn, who lives in Auckland, turned 40 last month, and Try Whistling This is suffused with a weary nostalgia. On the wistful Souvenir, backstage guests "play with you till you're all worn out," while Dream Date is a xylophone ode to his father ("whisky at five, a weekend retreat"). The passage from one generation to the next is a leitmotif of the CD, whose cover was drawn by Finn's 8-year-old son Elroy (his other son, Liam, 14, will play guitar and drums on the tour). "I've been doing music now for 20 years," Finn says, "so you inevitably start considering where you've come from and where you're heading."

Raised on an orchard 140 km south of Auckland, Finn penned his first song at age 12, borrowing lyrics from '60s folk hero Donovan. He likens songwriting to doodling, with a bass line, lyric or fragment of melody often emerging from the subconscious. "I usually try and imagine the space the song's occupying," says Finn, drawing spirals on a notepad, "like the room that it might be happening in." He's constantly drawn to life outside his own four walls. "It's amazing light out there," he says, taking pause at the silvery twilight outside his Sydney hotel window. "Quite stunning, surreal."

So is Try Whistling This, which reveals the singer-songwriter's own twisty talents. With its distorted vocals and oddball lyrics ("... the horse ate my trousers"), Twisty Bass is like a David Lynch movie put to music. Finn's songs rarely turn out the way you expect: the electronic shimmer of King Tide rises to crashing guitar and flooding emotion, while the simple opening chords of Faster Than Light climb into a cosmic paean to love. Finn calls songwriting "a force of will," yet his music feels organic and lived-in, with Simon and Garfunkel-style harmonies dissolving into slithery soundscapes. As he sings on She Will Have Her Way: "I might be old but I'm someone new."

Building on the cross-cultural rhythms of Finn, Neil and Tim's innovative 1995 album, Try Whistling This suggests an evolving New Zealand sound--one that combines darkly gothic lyrics with Polynesian sway. "It's developing," says Finn. "And it's in the end to do with something which seeps in from the land and the light and the indigenous cultures here." Let out of his Crowded House, Neil Finn is proving a masterly painter of this sonic landscape.