David Byrne – ‘Who Is The Sky?’ album review: a manic celebration of pop modernism
In his memoir, And Away…, surrealist British comedian Bob Mortimer shares an interesting insight into the peculiar workings of David Byrne. This comic insight seems resplendently present on the former Talking Heads man’s latest album, Who Is the Sky?.
Mortimer recalls, in riveting detail, Byrne strolling into a backstage green room at LWT Studios, curiosity and awe writ large across his handsome face. Byrne strolled that handsome face right up to within inches of the corner of the room, and then admired, in silence and at startlingly close proximity, this meeting of walls in a manner that made his approval perfectly clear. It mightn’t have been a Müller, but boy was it a nice corner to the ‘Psycho Killer’ singer.
If anything can be gleaned from that strange happening, it is surely thus: Byrne sees the beauty in things, and Byrne is a very singular man. Those factors make Who Is The Sky? as refreshing as a cold shower and just as affronting to get used to. His first album in seven years is a balming celebration of life that defies all previously known party etiquette. It’s a mad modernist masterpiece that defies a lot of things, in fairness, but a sense of familiarity isn’t one of them.
By and large, it is a pop record. As he points out on ‘The Avant Garde’, there is a lot to be said about the polished accessibility of pop. But all too often, it is also hamstrung by the confines of platitudes. Byrne almost preversely relishes in subverting these with rare songs that seem to be written from an autistic perspective (‘She Explains Things To Me’), songs that feature obscene kazoo-like vocal solos (‘When We Are Singing’), and Kafkaesque songs about de-ageing moisturisers that work too well (‘Moisturising Thing’).
The very singular viewpoint of these songs is cleverly ramped up further thanks to Kid Harpoon’s paradoxically straight production. The British producer is primarily known for his work with the likes of Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus, and it feels joyously odd to have his hook-driven minimalism married with the maximalist Ghost Train Orchestra ensemble’s instrumentation and a manic frontman yelling, “I saw a woman in a leotard”.
So, as you plunge deeper into the whirling mire of the intoxicating album, its strangeness asserts itself as ingenious pop modernism, expanding the listener’s horizons rather than just mirroring existing taste and safely echoing typical ‘charting’ utterances. In its happily awkward, corner-staring way, it forces you to listen in a deeper manner, despite the upbeat hooks offering irreverant escapism, too
The end result is perfectly encapsulated by the simple, groovy, and bottomless opening single: ‘Everybody Laughs’. It would be an abberenace of nature not to laugh, a record as fiercely fun as this makes that perfectly clear, but recently we seem to have lost sight of that fact. Surely, those who oppose us couldn’t possibly laugh?
The world is often presented in modern media through a clash of polar views, ostensibly so that a handshake in the middle can be mustered, but usually, all that materialises is an intense argument. Byrne’s buoyant, human inverse of this is a far better approach: to meet in the middle and explore our views and differences with empathy and respect. From the straight pop mingled with avant-gardism to the acoustic guitar somehow leading an entire orchestra, every aspect of this strange, delightful record speaks to that manically harmonious vision.
The album’s defining message: If an art-punk in his 70s, an avant-garde orchestra, and a pop producer can come together to make a stuffy Brit dance to a samba track about obsolescence paranoia, maybe there is hope for us if only we’d explore the world and its ideas like a congo line.
For fans of: Staring at pleasing corners.
A concluding comment from the UMG songwriting committee: “Now I’m just not sure you can open a love song with the line ‘She explains what is happening in the movies we watch’ without startling too many people on Radio One!”
Release Date: September 5th | Producer: Dom Monks | Label: 4AD
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