Month: April 2019

I’ve loved the Talking Heads from the(ir) very beginning.  Their entire career arc – until it came to a crashing halt with Naked – was one of joy, exploration, funk, noise, and flat-out weirdness.  It says something about how the world has finally caught up with them, that when you do your weekly shopping at Market Basket and hear “Take Me To The River”, it just sounds like the jam that it is rather than the eyeballs-open-oh-my-god-what-is-that-coming-out-of-the-speakers effect it had on everyone in 1978.  Although: when I hear “I Zimbra” or “The Great Curve” in the Produce section, THEN the world will have fully caught up.

Of course I’ve been engaged in David Byrne’s post-Heads work, although given how musically promiscuous he’s been over the past almost 30 years with solo work and collaborations, it’s a bit of a task to keep up.  I’ve liked selected singles of his like “My Fair Lady” (released in 2004 as part of a Wired magazine collection produced under Creative Commons) and his track “Who” with St. Vincent, what’s and of course his two collaborations with Brian Eno, especially 2008’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Nonesuch released Byrne’s 2004 disc Grown Backwards on March 15th on vinyl for the first time (hard to remember the “no vinyl” days, I know.)  The quality, inside and out, is typical for Nonesuch’s recent vinyl re-releases (including the spectacular 180g remaster of Nashville by Bill Frisell.)  Although this is the lighter 140g vinyl, the pressing quality is great, and Greg Calbi’s mastering is likewise. 

Grown Backwards is, on the one hand, a typical Byrne outing, running the gamut from songs like the opener “Glass Concrete & Stone” (now one of my new favorites) to “Glad”, with its Talking Heads-like cute/quirky/insightful lyrics (“I’m glad I’ve got skin, I’m glad I’ve got eyes/I’m glad I got hips, I’m glad I’ve got thighs/I’m glad I’m allowed to say the things I feel”)  The tunefulness of the original material is on par with the same year’s “My Fair Lady.”  And, strings!  Lots of them.  So, the album’s a keeper just based on those.

What really clinched the deal for me were the two songs lifted from the opera canon.  Yes.  Opera.  Byrne’s voice has always been an almost-operatic sweet tenor, just “off” enough in places to make to make it sound more like a natural yawp, but the rest of the time quite sweet (rather like one-time Talking Heads guitarist Adrian Belew (his voice is all-the-time great.))   “Au fond du temple saint”, from an 1863 Bizet opera, and Verdi’s “Un di felice, eterea” are the standouts on this record.  “Au fond du temple saint” is a duet with Rufus Wainwright(!) and is, hands down, the best track on this record.  The twin voices complement each other – in parts where Byrne’s seems to falter, Wainwright’s soars.  And vice versa.  There aren’t a lot of «««««-rated tracks on my iPod, but: welcome to the club, “Au fond du temple saint.”

The nice thing about Sight Unseen records is that they often (not always!) surprise you.  Grown Backwards turned out to be a satisfying confirmation of David Byrne’s creativity.  Get yo’self a copy.