Simon Finn :: “Pass The Distance” - Mushroom
Photo: Dawid Laskowski
Simon Finn, a Surrey-born musician and song-writer, relocated to the iconically and influential UK in 1967 to poetically penetrate the zoo-like zeitgeist of an incredibly impactful time in culture, music, and the ever-expanding ecosystem of a creative climate that has since reimagined what it means to be an artist. Carrying a familiar torch like Donovan and other various giants that reflected that peer parallelism, eager for excitement, opportunity, and anything and everything else in between, Finn settled into the lyrical logistics of London and immediately landed a gig at the legendary Marquee Club in Soho, opening for the soulful soothsayer Alvin Steward. Harmoniously harnessing his hazy abilities to generate a sonically specific stratosphere for his growing audience, the young musician creatively conjured the ancient acceleration of his generation with a forbidden force that comes from a place that most only hear about through tall tales of tonal trepidation and melodic meditation. Finn was here to stay, and while manifesting the momentum of his dangerously dormant album, he hit the ground running and never stopped, not once, to tie his shoe during the race for ultimate space-bound glory in music mortality. Bravely busking in the soulful streets of London while cautiously coexisting on the London Stock Exchange before locking in with local legends David Toop, a multi-instrumentalist of the highest degree, and the late percussionist Paul Burwell, Finn was nearing the last moments of the decade with great optimism and precious positivity that he would finally get the opportunity to write and record an album of his own and with two of the most open-minded and eager studio saints to test the worldly waters of texture, ritualistic rhythm and above all, genuine experimentation.
Hitting the cosmic circuit of London’s spiritually charged scene, Finn eventually found himself back in Keary’s studio sometime in 1969 and, from there, officially set the controls for the heart of the sun and his place in the radical reality of music mortality. Exploring esoteric elements of sexuality, space, and time, relishing reverberations of romance and religion, Finn’s 1971 masterpiece, “Pass The Distance,” holds a sincere flame to the irresistible ionosphere for all to hear and feel its vulnerable vibrations and shadowy structure. Shattering any humble hostilities toward the world and its near-death narrative, the songwriter managed to bring together the forbidden fruits of past, present, and future ideologies throughout the album’s atmospheric core of cosmic contemplation. Blissfully blending poetic psychedelia and the lysergic layers of his contemporaries, Finn located the aftermath of traditionalism in folk music and turned it upside down with the fluently flawless foundation of “Pass The Distance” and its lyrically luscious lunacy of sound. Signing with Mushroom, a UK-based label that had sonically specialized in the rare realms of expression, brought the songwriter into the dynamical depths of their already rich catalog, having worked with groups like Magic Carpet, Second Hand, and Ravi Shankar to release his melodic magnum-opus during the Spring of 1971. With numbers like “Where’s Your Master Gone,” “Butterfly,” “Hiawatha,” and the civil consciousness and poetically possessed “Jerusalem,” “Pass The Distance” radically embraces the community of claustrophobia and the menacing moments of isolation and harmonious hydration.
“The songs were about alienation and loneliness. Jerusalem came to me in one shot. I wrote it on mescaline and was playing it over and over and one of my flatmates wrote it down.”
Photo: Maiken Kildegaard
Eventually relocating to Canada, where he fully extracted himself from the world of music and songwriting, Finn found himself living a completely different life, but nothing out of the ordinary as he took to organic farming and teaching karate while being completely oblivious to the radiating reality of his “tiny” folk album that had been geographically generating a divine and global interest over the decades via the internet and the disturbingly desperate and motivated record collecting community of the universal underworld. Like many from his generation, Finn has now been able to enjoy and tap into the fruits of his domestically dormant labor by reversing his retirement by going full speed into the dimensional depths of a new ecosystem of industry, fandom, and cultural celebration for his lone masterpiece that continues to resonate with people from all walks of life. Finn has since released several albums over the years and has even worked with contemporary giants like Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth fame, Current 93, Graham Coxon, and countless others.
