Talking Heads mastermind David Byrne has given his fans a taste of what’s to come with the unveiling of new track today.
‘Everybody’s Coming to my House’ is a preview to the singer’s upcoming album American Utopia, which will drop later this year, and will mark Byrne’s first solo LP in 14 years, and 2004’s Grow Backwards. This groove-heavy track also credits fellow icon Brian Eno as a co-writer.
Eno is not the only guest contributor on American Utopia, with TTY, Jack Penate, and Mercury Prize winner Sampha also appearing on the album.
A small # of east coast shows! We’ll be doing some new songs, & many others that will, I assume, be familiar. I’m excited. This is the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense, so fingers crossed. Info @ https://t.co/B8YgcnekRv pic.twitter.com/ehQ41X1MyD
— DavidByrne.com (@DBtodomundo) December 12, 2017
Accompanying the album’s announcement was an extensive tour of North and South America, which Byrne proclaimed via the Tweet above to be his ‘most ambitious’ dates since the heady days of Stop Making Sense in the 1980s.
Back in December, Byrne went into more depth about what the upcoming live dates would involve, telling the Brooklyn Vegan about his desire to use mobile instruments. “With everyone mobile, I realized the stage could be completely clear. If we could have the monitors in our ears, the amps off-stage and the lights up high, then we had the possibility of a completely empty space,” he explained, before continuing to describe how his stage set “takes color beautifully. Not only does it take color, one can cast shadows.”
Byrne has also issued a statement about American Utopia, attempting to clarify the seriousness of the LP’s title.
”
Is this meant ironically? Is it a joke? Do I mean this seriously? In what way? Am I referring to the past or the future? Is it personal or political?
These songs don’t describe an imaginary or possibly impossible place but rather attempt to depict the world we live in now. Many of us, I suspect, are not satisfied with that world—the world we have made for ourselves. We look around and we ask ourselves—well, does it have to be like this? Is there another way? These songs are about that looking and that asking.
This album is indirectly about those aspirational impulses. Sometimes to describe is to reveal, to see other possibilities. To ask a question is to begin the process of looking for an answer. To be descriptive is also to be prescriptive, in a way. The act of asking is a big step. The songs are sincere—the title is not ironic. The title refers not to a specific utopia, but rather to our longing, frustration, aspirations, fears, and hopes regarding what could be possible, what else is possible. The description, the discontent and the desire—I have a feeling that is what these songs touch on.
I have no prescriptions or surefire answers, but I sense that I am not the only one looking and asking, wondering and still holding onto some tiny bit of hope, unwilling to succumb entirely to despair or cynicism.”
