Fink

Fin Greenall, known professionally as Fink, is an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer and disc jockey born in Cornwall and currently based in Berlin and London.

Greenall was born 1972 in Cornwall and grew up in Bristol.

Greenall recalls "the one thing of his dad's that he wasn't allowed to touch was the old Martin acoustic guitar."

Greenall said, "It was his one possession where he said, 'everything in this house is owned by everybody – apart from that. Their presence influenced his future in music. "The great thing about growing up in a house where music is a big factor... was the fact that music being part of your life was a perfectly natural thing." During his teenage years, he accumulated eclectic musical interests, gravitating towards The Cure, The Smiths, The Orb, African music, and Japanese hardcore, before discovering electronic and dance music at University of Leeds.

For the remainder of the 1990s and much of the early 2000s, Greenall worked in the music industry for various London-based labels, including Virgin's Source, Def Jam, and Sony.

Simultaneously, he pursued a musical career, remixing and producing for various artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto and Elbow but also as a DJ.

He earned his degree in History and English at University of Leeds and, with student friends, formed the short-lived dance act EVA, who signed to Kikin' Records in 1993.

From 1997 to 2003, he focused on electronic music and DJ'd internationally, releasing in 2000 his debut album Fresh Produce on Ninja Tune.

Fink's serious recording career began with Ninja Tune subsidiary N-Tone's release of his debut single "Fink Funk" in 1997, followed by the album Fresh Produce in 2000, which was well received.

In the following years, he continued to produce other artists, including Martin Taylor, Michael Pitt and Robert Belfour.

Greenall performed a solo rendition of "The Apologist" from the band's 1998 album Up.

Towards the mid-2000s, Greenall developed a disillusionment with dance music and being a DJ and began to turn to more traditional musical avenues.

Since the 2006 release of his album Biscuits for Breakfast, the name Fink has also referred to the recording and touring trio fronted by Greenall himself, completed by Guy Whittaker (bass) and Tim Thornton (drums).

Most recently, he has written in collaboration with John Legend, Banks, Ximena Sarinana and Professor Green.

With Amy Winehouse, he co-wrote the song "Half Time", which appears on Winehouse's posthumous collection Lioness: Hidden Treasures.

It was this feeling which resulted in 2006's Biscuits for Breakfast, the first album to feature current collaborators Guy Whittaker and Tim Thornton, with whom Greenall had been friends for a few years but had not yet worked.

Built around his bluesy voice, finger-picking acoustic guitar and the stripped-back live rhythm section, the self-produced Biscuits boasted a fledgling pop sensibility while retaining some of the signature Ninja Tune sonic hallmarks.

He became the label's first singer/songwriter.

The album, along with single "Pretty Little Thing", helped define his style and began to bring his name to a wider, and higher-profile, audience, notably Zero 7, who invited Fink to support them on their UK tour.

During the extensive European and American tours which accompanied Biscuits, Greenall began to write songs for the follow-up album.

For this, he collaborated both with his bandmates and third parties, teaming up with Blair MacKichan for the writing of the "This is the Thing", and producer Andy Barlow of Lamb.

The eventual album, Distance and Time, was released through Ninja Tune in October 2007, and was immediately recognised as a more robust, band-led affair than its predecessor, with musicOMH stating that "the soft-spoken confessionals of their debut are more accomplished this time, taken to the big city and returned home just as wounded, but more worldly-unwise than their little brothers."

The tour following Distance's release took Fink to new territories such as Germany, South Africa and Canada, and also saw the band supporting Italian rock band Negramaro at their climactic San Siro stadium show in Milan.

One of Distance and Time's tracks "If Only" attracted the attention of American singer-songwriter John Legend, with whom Greenall collaborated on tracks for his album Evolver.

The hit single "Green Light", featuring André 3000, won a BMI Award for Greenall in 2010.

Legend reciprocated by collaborating on songs for Fink's 2009 album Sort of Revolution.

Greenall decided to return to production duties for this set, resulting in a more experimental approach that the BBC's Keira Burgess described as a "sublime study in the art of pleasing yourself without drowning in indulgence".

Radiohead became a fan of Fink's work at this time, posting the song "Q&A" on their website playlist.

BBC Radio One DJ Gilles Peterson, who commissioned a live session for his late-night show, recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios.

Sort of Revolution's accompanying tour was more extensive than previous outings, taking the band to China and Australia for the first time.

In the latter country, Fink headlined a three-night stand at the Sydney Festival.

It was during this trip that Greenall met Professor Green, and the pair decided on a collaboration for Green's upcoming debut album, 2010's Alive Till I'm Dead.

The track, "Closing The Door", features a rap from Green, a sung vocal from Greenall and instrumental backing from Thornton and Whittaker.

Songwriting sessions for Fink's fifth full-length album began in early 2010.

For this album, Greenall's process was very different.

Greenall recounted in an interview that "after all the live shows and all the fun we'd had on stage, we jammed first as a band. No vocals, just these massive soundscapes. We did about 30 of them. Then a couple of weeks later, go through them, pick the best bits. "Perfect Darkness", the song, was one riff, one bass line and one moment of a 20-minute jam."

The experience led Green to request a further partnership, this time for his 2011 release At Your Inconvenience, another full-band collaboration on "Spinning Out", a reworking of The Pixies 1987 classic "Where Is My Mind".

On the American trip for the Revolution album, Fink was invited to perform at a tribute concert for R.E.M. at New York City's Carnegie Hall.

In 2012, Fink collaborated and performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, resulting in the live album Fink Meets The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Fink is signed to his own label, R'COUP'D Records, a subsidiary of Ninja Tune, on which he has released his latest albums.