Southern Cross

Studio Album - February 1990

In 1989 Phil was ready to start work on another album and realised that he had never explored his Latin heritage. - childhood in Cuba, adolescence in Venezuela and Columbia.
The lyrical and musical content of the songs on the album came from a desire to blend rock, pop and dance with Latin rhythms like Cumbia and Andean folk music.
It started life as an instrumental album but Tim Finn of Split Enz and Crowded House fame turned up from Oz one morning and Southern Cross metamorphosed onto a series of musical collaborations. Tim helped Phil with lyrical thoughts and together, with help from a few friends they came up with what they thought was a new musical genre, Southern Cross.

This was the first album to be released on Phil Manzanera's Expression label. The album consisting of 11 songs and 1 instrumental has its vocals featuring Gary Dyson, Ana Maria Velez and Tim Finn.

A Million Reasons Why was released as a 7" with an extended version released on a 12". A remix of Tambor was released in Spain and Guantanamera was released as a 3" CD in Japan and had 3 mixes of the track released in Germany under the title Phil Manzanera Project.

The UK vinyl version omitted Blood Brother and Venceremos. A USA edition of this album was released in 1991. which omitted Astrud, Guantanamera & Blood Brother and added a new recording of Frontera '91. This is an instrumental version of the song from Phil's Diamond Head album.

The album was re-released by expression as A Million Reasons Why in 1997, which included 4 live tracks from the Guitar Legends concerts in Seville in 1993.

Album Track Listing

Other Tracks of Interest

Album Musicians & Credits