David Byrne has a new album and he's taking it on the road
Who Is The Sky? includes contributions from St. Vincent, Hayley Williams, and more.
Screenshot: David Byrne/YouTube
“Everybody laughs and everybody cries,” David Byrne sings in his new single, but the only tears Talking Heads fans will be crying this month are happy ones. Last week, the band premiered a new music video for “Psycho Killer,” starring Saoirse Ronan. While they’re likely never, ever getting back together, Byrne just announced the next best thing. The legendary frontman is back with his first solo album in seven years, titled Who Is The Sky?.
He’s bringing some friends with him: St. Vincent and Paramore’s Hayley Williams both collaborated on the album, as well as The Smile’s Tom Skinner, and more. All 12 songs were arranged by members of the New York chamber ensemble, Ghost Train Orchestra.
This collaborative spirit is represented in the album’s first single, “Everybody Laughs.” “Someone I know said, ‘David, you use the word ‘everybody’ a lot.’ I suppose I do that to give an anthropological view of life in New York as we know it,” Byrne shared of the track in a press release, per Pitchfork. “Everybody lives, dies, laughs, cries, sleeps and stares at the ceiling. Everybody’s wearing everybody else’s shoes, which not everybody does, but I have done. I tried to sing about these things that could be seen as negative in a way balanced by an uplifting feeling from the groove and the melody, especially at the end, when St. Vincent and I are doing a lot of hollering and singing together. Music can do that—hold opposites simultaneously.”
Everybody’s also getting involved in Byrne’s extensive tour, which will take him to multiple continents this year and next. He’ll be joined by a 13-person backing band, including members of the American Utopia band (his last album-turned-Broadway show), all of whom—in typical Byrne fashion—will be “mobile throughout the set.”
Who Is The Sky? is out September 5. Check out the album artwork, tracklist, and Byrne’s tour dates below:
Who Is The Sky? Tracklist:
- “Everybody Laughs”
- “When We Are Singing”
- “My Apartment Is My Friend”
- “A Door Called No”
- “What Is the Reason for It?”
- “I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party”
- “Don’t Be Like That”
- “The Avant Garde”
- “Moisturizing Thing”
- “I’m an Outsider”
- “She Explains Things to Me”
- “The Truth”
David Byrne tour dates
09-14 Providence, RI – Veterans Memorial Auditorium
