Love This Giant Collaboration

The long-awaited collaboration between David Byrne and St. Vincent (Annie Clark) will finally hit shelves and mp3 servers September 11^th  via 4AD/Todo Mundo.   The record is called Love This Giant, and has been in the works for over two years. For the price of your barely used hotmail address the track "Who" can be downloaded below.

The album offers ten collaborative tracks and two written by each musician individually. Vocal duties were split in half. The Dap-Kings and Antibalas help out on the track "The One Who Broke Your Heart".



Love This Giant:

01 Who
02 Weekend in the Dust
03 Dinner for Two
04 Ice Age
05 I Am an Ape
06 The Forest Awakes
07 I Should Watch TV
08 Lazarus
09 Optimist
10 Lightning
11 The One Who Broke Your Heart (ft. The Dap-Kings and Antibalas)
12 Outside of Space & Time

The good news keeps coming though as Byrne and Clark will also tour throughout North America this fall.  The duo is set to perform the music of Love This Giant as well as selections from each of their extensive discographies. Dates below.

St. Vincent and David Byrne:

09-15 Minneapolis, MN - State Theater
09-16 Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theater
09-18 Chicago, IL - Chicago Theatre
09-20 Toronto, Ontario - Queen Elizabeth Theatre
09-21 Montreal, Quebec - Eglise St-Jean Baptiste (POP Montreal)
09-23 Boston, MA - Orpheum Theatre
09-25 New York, NY - Beacon Theater
09-26 New York, NY - Beacon Theater
09-27 Philadelphia, PA - Tower Theater
09-29 Brooklyn, NY - Williamsburg Park
09-30 N. Bethesda MD - The Music Center at Strathmore
10-02 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
10-03 Atlanta, GA - Cobb Energy Center
10-05 Austin, TX - Bass Concert Hall
10-06 Houston, TX - Hobby Center
10-07 Dallas, TX - McFarlin Memorial Auditorium (SMU)
10-10 San Diego, CA - Humphrey's
10-11 Santa Barbara, CA - Arlington Theatre
10-12 Costa Mesa, CA - Segerstrom Theater for the Arts
10-13 Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theater
10-15 San Francisco, CA - Orpheum Theatre
10-17 Seattle, WA - 5th Avenue Theatre
10-18 Portland, OR - Arlene Schnitzer Auditorium
10-20 Vancouver, British Columbia - Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts


St. Vincent "Cheerleader" from Hiro Murai on Vimeo.

New Music, Noise and Narration

David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries to be Released on Audiobook

In 2009, David Byrne released Bicycle Diaries, an impressionistic memoir of his life as an avid bike rider in several major cities around the globe. A highly enjoyable read, Bicycle Diaries chronicles Byrne’s folding-bike explorations and his search for artistic expression, his thoughts on music, urban planning, fashion, architecture and much more. His unique black and white conceptual photographs are also included. (You can read a great review here.)

On September 28th, Viking will release Bicycle Diaries in a variety of new formats. Of particular note, the book will be available as an audiobook read by Byrne himself with accompanying music. According to Byrne's website, the audiobook “also features location sounds, creating an atmosphere more akin to a radio show than a simple reading of the book.*  You can download the introduction to the book for free via the handy widget below.

I can’t think of a better accompaniment for the ride into work in the morning.

* Recommended if you are a fan of the style of This American Life.

David Byrne to Score New Paolo Sorrentino Film

Musician, author, PowerPoint User, bicycle aficionado, TED lecturer and ex-Talking Head David Byrne has announced he will score This Must Be the Place, the English-language debut of Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino.


The film presumably takes its name after the Talking Heads' song, "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)," and will star Sean Penn as a wealthy, middle-aged rock star whose retirement ennui leads him to track down his father’s executioner, an ex-Nazi war criminal taking refuge in the U.S. The film will also star Frances McDormand as Penn’s wife and Toni Servillo (who starred in Sorrentino’s Prix du Jury-winning Il Divo at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival) as the Nazi Sean Penn was out to off.

From the Playlist: The film reportedly has a budget of $28 million, and has been described by Sorrentino as multi-faceted: “On the one hand, it's about a father-and-son relationship. On the other, it delves into the theme of the Holocaust, which is a lot riskier, but also something I've been thinking about a lot.”

Byrne has done all kinds of score work accompanying work by the likes of Jonathan Demme, Bernardo Bertolucci and David Mackenzie. Byrne recently worked on HBO's Big Love, and the 2003 David Mackenzie film, Young Adam.

The film is set to shoot in Dublin, Ireland and the U.S. for 10 weeks starting in August.

UPDATE - Playing the Building

POST UPDATE - The latest episode of Boing Boing TV features Xeni Jardin visting David Byrne in NYC where he gives her a tour of a the Battery Maritime Building that he has turned into a giant musical instrument, part of his Playing the Building series of sound installations.

Home, Is Where I Want to Play

We’re all used to playing music in our homes. But have you ever considered playing music with your home? Whhhaaaaaaaa?

Well, this is your chance; At least in an art installation curated by musician and artistic visionary David Byrne.

Starting May 31st, visitors to New York's Battery Maritime Building will be able to take part in Byrne's interactive music installation called simply "Playing the Building". Like its self-explanatory title implies, the Battery will be fitted with devices that will allow visitors to make music off of the piping, pillars and more. It's an interesting way to view the structures we take for granted in everyday life. According to Byrne, it could be the future of music itself.

"I'd like to say that in a small way it turns consumers into creative producers," Byrne explains on his official site, "but that might be a bit too much to claim. However, even if one doesn't play the thing, it points toward a less mediated kind of cultural experience. It might be an experience in which one begins to reexamine one's surroundings and to realize that culture -- of which sound and music are parts -- doesn't always have to be produced by professionals and packaged in a consumable form.

"I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments," he adds, "but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down. The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part."

John Cage would be proud.