From his early days with Talking Heads, David Byrne has ploughed a highly individual furrow, and exploited a persona that combines naivety with knowingness, fun pop with serious intent. He's perhaps, without appearing to be, one of the most spiritually orientated artists working in popular music today. He's always been true to form, whether wearing outsize suits or doing almost robotic dances.
His latest album is in many ways no surprise, as although he’s decades older than when he sang “psycho-killer, qu’est ce que c’est” or recreated sound poems by Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters, his style and stand are instantly recognisable, as if he’d been born to be weird, an appealing kind of crazy and a startled-eyed darling of the avant-garde.
The album opens with “Everybody Laughs”, an infectiously upbeat and rhythmically vibrant antidote to Trump-associated depression. As with the rest of the album, produced by Kid Harpoon – known for his mainstream work with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus, the sound is gloriously festive – the strings and brass of the Ghost Train Orchestra sparkle, marimbas and Latin percussion glitter exotically. This is pure party-music and yet coloured by that bittersweet element of acute self-awareness that subtly undermines the quality of joy that suffuses the bounce. Byrne’s apparent and sometimes over-egged naivety runs through sublimely quirky songs about buildings (“ My Apartment is My Friend") the paradoxes inherent in Eastern spirituality ("I Met th Buddha at a Downtown Party”), the perils of facial lotions ("Moisturizing Thing") and love (“What is the Reason for It”) .
“The Avant-Garde” playfully reflects on the notion of going forwards off-piste – with a typical mix of faux-naïf, amused cynicism and sheer fun. Byrne’s addiction to playfulness has a strange and crazy quality, just on the safe side of irritating, displaying a kind of irony that’s particularly American and very different from what makes for humour on this side of the pond.
The act that Byrne has embodied from the start – performance art that reminds us of his student-days at the Rhode Island School of Design - provides a good cover for anything too personal or confessional. At times, the perpetual irony, albeit wrapped in brilliant play and fun, can get a little wearying. There are moments, such as the less self-consciously clever “I’m an Outsider” when something of the man’s inner life emerges, but the song is swiftly followed by a paradox-laden exploration of our take on reality, “The Truth”, which places us firmly back in the intellectual fireworks wrapped in popular style that David Byrne has made his very own. And perhaps, to hope for an inner Byrne isn't what it’s about. Might all the Dada-tinged fun be reaching beyond the illusions of ego, and as transcendent as can be?
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