Originally Posted by David Goldsmith:
Originally Posted by Spencer Goode:
Thanks for the update! Disembodied Voices is so different!
That's because it sounds the same as "Rest" - the last track on "Say It Is So" (1999). There may be something else sounding like Disembodied Voices floating about but I don't think it is in this excerpt. I'm struggling to discern any of Catherine Wheels or Fraction Too Much Friction for that matter.
Don't know where to begin after listening to this the once through. Can you provide a little background Jaffaman as to how these are seeing the light of day just now? How was the album title and cover art chosen? I'm assuming that it's relatively recent that new stuff has been uncovered, as the previous small amount on Enzology/Nilfun didn't do this material justice at all. It's fantastic to hear it and I hope there's more to come from the vaults!!
There was a small amount of a vocal "Give It A Whirl" in one of the Enzology promos, which was stated to be from the Nineez. Was that perhaps from somewhere else or did you just decide to leave it out from this album?
Tha Nineez excerpt is just the beginning of the melodic idea which Tim held onto for years and used in both "Rest" and the verse of "Disembodied Voices". Same melody, pretty much. There is another Nineez demo which I've just realised sounds a bit like the chorus of "Disembodied", but it's a less obvious resemblance.
Tha Nineez guitar refrain of "Catherine Wheels" is playing what became the chorus in the final Crowded House track. It's faster and is only featured briefly, so isn't that obvious. But if you listen to the Old Mill House section of Enzology Episode 5, there's a brief jam of that same section but with lyrics: "She was always the first to say gone." The same line featured in the finished Crowded House song 15 years later.
Spencer is right. The chorus of Tha Nineez' "Fraction Too Much" is the same melody of the verse of Tim's solo hit.
There is a Nineez "Give It A Whirl" recording with Neil singing, but no actual lyrics. Just da da dums. The instrumental version was preferred. Enzology 5 featured a bit of the Old Mill House rehearsal.
"Heather Dean", to answer Spencer's question, has a section at 46 seconds which was borrowed for the verse of "How Will You Go", but in a different time signature and with a significantly different arrangement.
Tha Nineez collection follows up on the Nilfun flash files that went up on neilfinn.com in February. As you mentioned, the original Nilfun site had a few Nineez tracks so I wanted to include them too - but this time in better quality and quantity. No new tape discoveries here. I had transferred all of Neil's Nineez cassettes to CD-R around 2000 in preparation for Enzology but there wasn't room in the series to feature more than a tiny amount.
The album title and cover art are taken from one of the Noel-designed cassettes of Nineez jams. The photo was also used on the Sniff page on the original Nilfun.
There will definitely be more audio and video goodies from the vaults, covering all stages of Neil's career.