10 to 1 Records
Simon Finn : Rats Laugh Mice Sing (UK,2009)****
Simon Finn in this album has evolved an even more distinctive style, perfectly arranged by a life’s energy and total involvement (also of its participants, on diverse instruments, but a great portion of visions and violin by Jolie wood amongst others), ever changing and responding to its experiences and transmissions. How could you ever not be a bit cynical like Simon Finn could sound sometimes when you see how some people treat and are prepared to use each other a bit, or to lie a bit in contrast to their own much more miserable reality than the one they project, Simon Finn swallowed each pill life had to offer, including the bitter ones.
But no matter how he was treated and pushed to the outside himself, he shows so much social care and conscious participating, I wonder that if all people would treat persons and life so seriously the outcome would have looked differently, at least a bit more direct.
Even when bitterness hangs around certain corners, each song injects another energy, with different perfectly suiting arrangements and different tensions, becoming part of life, and therefore has a couple of times (less than before) a few open endings ; -one of the songs say “half completed songs that remind me whenever that might be that things that have a meaning aren’t always seen”-.
And in the road of experiences taken for what they are, more often certain sentences appear that sound like wisdoms of conclusions, or like open doors to bigger worlds of experiences, small simple conclusions perhaps but with a world of experiences behind it to explain, a metaphor for a wider vision for those who are able to understand or share this, these are open doors for more (“if you want to keep things simple look for the things that can’t be faked”) or towards different directions.
There are a lot of observations involved, and with its words some pressure underneath the unspoken is given away consciously, with sometimes more metaphorical life stories.
And for being pushed away a few times like living on the edge, the mice truly participated with all available experiences. And by the way, the first track on the album also proved that mice (not rats) sing like birds.
