Here's one way for strong musical personalities to work together amicably: Keep your distance.
David Byrne and Brian Eno were the songwriter and producer on the most radical albums by Talking Heads, and they collaborated on a 1981 album, “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.” After 27 years, they reunited to make their second duo album, “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today,” which was released digitally in August. As soon as it can be manufactured and distributed, it will re-emerge as a physical CD.
For most of the album's yearlong process, the songwriting partners were an ocean apart, Eno in London and Byrne in New York City, though both are globe-hoppers. They also kept their jobs separate. By and large, Eno provided the music, and Byrne topped it with melodies, words and vocals.
“We didn't really talk to each other,” Eno said. “We used e-mail, the modern way of recording. I could spend as long as I wanted on the music. And he wasn't under any pressure to do something with me sitting there drumming my fingers.”
Byrne and Eno do get along, however. A few weeks ago, Eno visited New York to brainstorm with Byrne over last-minute musical tweaks and the details of releasing the album independently – a sensible choice given its home-studio recording budget and their combined fame. Over bottled water and slices of watermelon at Todomundo, the SoHo office coordinating Byrne's visual-arts and musical projects, Eno and Byrne chatted jovially about the latest intersection of their two prolific careers. A large fish mounted on a plaque – caught, Byrne admitted, at a flea market – presided overhead.
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David Byrne: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno
When: Tonight, 7:30
Where: Humphrey's Concerts by the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive
Tickets: $75
Phone: (619) 220-TIXS
Online: ticketmaster.com
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Byrne and Eno didn't treat “Everything That Happens” as a momentous reunion. “Strange Overtones,” a song available as a free download, teases their own songwriting: “This groove is out of fashion / These beats are 20 years old.” (The song was downloaded 40,000 times in the first three days it was available.)
As for the weight of their achievements, “I didn't think about it,” Eno said. “This was just something new.” Byrne said he looked back only to assure himself that the new tracks weren't overly similar to their past collaborations. But now that the album is made, he has decided to tour this fall with material spanning his collaborations with Eno, from Talking Heads songs to the new album.
Byrne and Eno have been consistent pipelines between pop and various movements of the avant-garde. Eno is probably best known as the producer for David Bowie, U2 and, lately, Paul Simon and Coldplay, creating eerie sounds while honing the hooks. But he also has an extensive catalog of his own albums of songs and ambient music, full of ideas and sounds that have been periodically rediscovered. In the art world, Eno has created numerous video and sound projects and installations. He had four simultaneous gallery shows in July. He has also been recording with the keyboardist Herbie Hancock.
Byrne led Talking Heads, one of the pioneering punk-era bands at CBGB, from sparse new wave through dizzying Afro-funk and twisted Americana, sounds that have been revived lately by indie rockers like Vampire Weekend.
Byrne has long been fascinated by belief and its expressions. He and Talking Heads introduced Eno to gospel music, and the lyrics to the new album are sprinkled with biblical allusions. “Big Love: Hymnal” has stately pieces with strings and horns that sound humbly reverent.
Asked about spirituality in his music, Byrne said: “I'm always thinking about it but not overtly. That might frighten me. Probably like a lot of people, I feel alienated from the traditional models that were presented when I was a child, and eventually I left those and said, 'That doesn't seem relevant to me.' But I, like a lot of people, felt that as human beings we have some longing for transcending things in some way, shape or form.”
On the new album, Byrne's lyrics are filled with images of catastrophe of redemption, balancing dread and affirmation. The music tilts the songs toward hope. Byrne said, “I thought, if I can write lyrics that emphasize that kind of uplift but then express the other stuff that's going on as well, then it will seem like the music and the words and all the other stuff all belong together and came out of one mind, as opposed to being artificially stuck together.”
