a broken record spins in circles, she just can't listen anymore

They're lyrics by Finch. While they're a band I don't hugely like, I did like that song for a while.

The point of that is that the song is called "New Beginnings". And its relevence is that I've had my hand forced regarding this piece of citizen journalism and so I'm getting this blog up and running again. Yeah, cheers Jonty...I...uhhh...owe you one.

To coincide with this monumentous occasion, I'll write and tell you that one of my most anticipated albums was released today - Liam Finn's solo debut "I'll Be Lightning". And thanks to a certain uncle and aunty (not the ABC, unfortunately) and their Sanity voucher from last Christmas dug up during a spontaneous and infrequent tidy of my room, I bought myself this album while keeping my hard earnt in my pocket. (That hard earnt went towards a sub of the day barely 20 metres from the Sanity store).

Two-and-a-half years ago Kiwi band Betchadupa, that Finn fronts, played a free lunchtime gig at RMIT's Bowen St. All of 50 people watched it, most only for five minutes while walking to insignificant classes, particularly in week one. Especially when they could've seen an amazing band.

I doubt I could call it a life changing experience - Liamm Finn never has actually done anything that's changed the course of my life - however it did make me go out and investigate further. and off to JB Hifi I went.

I scored myself the cheaper of their two albums, The Alphabetchadupa, and it took a while to get into. But after several listens and 30 months later it easily sits in the top five albums that I own now, with the track "Lucy's Song" recognised in a similar fashion.

Liam Finn, for the ignorant few out there the son of Crowded House and Split Enz legend Neil, has the ability to say so much in so few words. It's self reflective, emotive music sung with a gentleness that evokes ideas of a guy being honest to himeslf, if not anything else. It's beautiful song writing, but ever so simple. It's about the most basic things in life that we often overlook or take for granted. It's about many things, but you wouldn't think so.

I guess the best way to sum it up is by saying it's exactly like the (environmentally friendly) booklet that it comes with. There is no words in the booklet. Just photos. Of nothing special either: a green paddock that looks like somewhere in England (where he now calls home); a destroyed computer screen on a footpath; a street of terrace houses with leafless trees in the middle of Winter; the front of a hotel dimly lit by a fading street light.

Perhaps two of the most nothing photos of them all show a rusting clothes line in a suburban backyard with an overgrown weed spiralling up the side of a brick house, and an image of Finn behind a table with a blank expression and a similarly blank black t-shirt.

They are images of nothing, but yet you feel like you've completed a journey.