![]() ![]() In addition, Parson has collaborated with numerous acclaimed musicians, ranging from David Bowie to Esperanza Spalding, while also being the artistic director of Brooklyn’s Big Dance Theater since 1991. While this may seem a bit excessive, I wasn’t surprised to see this considering Byrne’s music has always drawn from drum-heavy genres like Latin and afrobeat.Īlso worth mentioning is the show’s choreographer, Annie-B Parson, who has worked with Byrne on a handful of tours as far back as 2008. Most notably, there are six percussionists out of the bunch. ![]() Shot by veteran film director Spike Lee, the show takes place at the Hudson Theatre in New York, and was filmed in December of last year in the midst of a four-month residency.Īlongside Byrne, who provides lead vocals and guitar, is a team of eleven talented musicians, dancers, and vocalists from various parts of the world. Last month, HBO blessed subscribers with an exclusive taping of Byrne’s American Utopia Broadway show, a stage adaptation of the tour’s performance. As Talking Heads quickly became one of my favourite bands of all time – with their eclectic mix of punk rock, pop, and funk – I was absolutely gutted when I found out that I missed my one chance to see their music performed live. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the following year that I became familiar with Byrne’s work and new wave as a whole. The difference now, however, is that Byrne no longer assumes he needs one.Back in 2018, new wave pioneer and ex-Talking Heads frontman, David Byrne, brought his American Utopia tour to the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium to rave reviews. “We’re only tourists in this life,” he sings, “only tourists, but the view is nice.” The 28-year-old who wrote “Once in a Lifetime” may have fruitlessly asked himself, “How did I get here?” and his 65-year-old counterpart has grown no closer to finding an answer. A clear descendant of Talking Heads’ 1980 masterpiece “Remain in Light,” the song sees Byrne once again taking stock of his life as though witnessing it from a passive remove, but here the outlook has changed. Penultimate track “Everybody’s Coming to My House” captures perhaps the essence of his music - it’s an instantly infectious, insistently rhythmic song that nonetheless has enough of an edge to make you hesitate to actually dance to it. In contrast, “This Is That,” one of several collaborations with enigmatic composer Oneohtrix Point Never, is a treasure trove of sonic pleasures geared for close headphone listening, but the bones of the song beneath them never quite seem to connect.īut when Byrne’s themes and his compositions cohere, the results are wonderful to behold. “It’s Not Dark Up Here” starts promisingly but doesn’t add flesh to its loose framework. ![]() (“The brain is a soft-boiled potato” “the pope don’t mean s–t to a dog.”) There’s still plenty of room for darkness - the downtempo “Bullet” offers a stark, anatomical description of a bullet passing through a human body, and stands as perhaps the most politically relevant song on the record - but there’s enough hope and joy here to take Byrne at his word that the phrase “American Utopia” should be read without irony.Īt times, particularly during the more meditative middle stretch, the album can be easier to admire than to love. “Dog’s Mind” imagines a presidential inauguration as seen from a canine perspective, while “Every Day Is a Miracle” is full of oddball bons mots. Rather than dwell on the horrors of the Trump era, he opts to take a more expansive view, frequently reaching for gardening metaphors and snatches of Seussian metaphysics. Yet the focus throughout is squarely on Byrne’s inimitable croon - at 65, his voice is remarkably pristine - and his often defiantly optimistic lyrics. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |