Sound off
On our minds and on our playlists
What do you get when you coop up an eclectic group of musicians - including members of Radiohead, Wilco, Crowded House, the Smiths, and KT Tunstall - for three weeks over the Christmas holiday on the New Zealand coast? You get “The Sun Came Out,’’ a terrific benefit album of all original material featuring the above rock critic dream team as well as assorted friends and family members.
Neil Finn of Crowded House is once again the pied piper here. In 2001 he corralled some of the same names for a series of live benefit concerts dubbed “7 Worlds Collide’’ - from a line in a Crowded House song. Last December, Finn sent out the call again, this time to benefit Oxfam. The collective - now going by the “7 Worlds’’ moniker itself - furiously wrote, collaborated, and caroused, resulting in tunes that vary wildly but share a common level of quality. “Black Silk Ribbon’’ is a chilling acoustic murder ballad featuring Tunstall and NZ singer-songwriter Bic Runga. Radiohead drummer Phil Selway takes to the microphone for the tender, Ray Davies-esque charmer “The Ties That Bind Us.’’ and on the ruminative pop-rocker “Run in the Dust’’ Johnny Marr of the Smiths is backed by Finn, half of Wilco, two-fifths of Radiohead, Sebastian Steinberg of Soul Coughing, and Lisa Germano.
This past summer, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco spoke about the project and beamed in remembrance. “There was such a generosity of spirit in everybody involved in that project,’’ he said. That generosity is not only evidenced by the benefit component but in the music itself.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
