TimeOut's interview with Neil Finn last week explained his urge to work with producer Dave Fridmann, whose trademark psychedelic grandeur has made records by Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips sound like they come from another planet.
One, where, given the American studio guy's affection for falsetto, suggests
its atmosphere has a fairly high helium content.
Hearing the familiar voice of Finn - often bounced up an octave - in this unfamiliar territory is at first disconcerting. This isn't the jovial electro-wonkiness of his last outing with his missus-and-mates, the Pajama Club. And it certainly doesn't offer the home comforts of a Crowded House or Finn brothers album.
Initially, Dizzy Heights feels a bit weightless, perhaps due to the mid-tempo soul-shaped, coolly funky songs that start it out. There's something a bit Style Council around the edges of the airy title track and something a bit latter-day Roxy Music about Flying in the Face of Love.
But it turns out, Finn's first album to bear just his name in a decade soon starts to really take hold about the time Divebomber is unleashing a fevered dream of symphonic pop.
