From 2012-16 I was a feature writer for ABC Arts Online. This archive has now been wiped from the internet, so some of the more interesting pieces from this period will be rehashed and republished here, starting with an interview with Neil Finn on the 20th anniversary of the Crowded House album, Together Alone. Originally published October 2013

It is the pronounced darkness of Kare Kare at night that sticks in Neil Finn’s memory when recalling the thousand sensory impressions as Crowded House recorded Together Alone across the summer of 1992/3. Finn and his bandmates had moved into a large house owned by producer Nigel Horrocks, perched above Kare Kare Beach itself, a disconcertingly sublime setting for an album that has not only gone on to be the band’s critical highpoint, but one of the finest Antipodean albums ever made.

“On a moonlit night it would be like you were in a starscape,” says Finn, marking 20 years since the album’s October 1993 release, “and on a moonless night the sport was to get back from dinner without a torch.”

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