Legends David Byrne and Brian Eno team up

Legends David Byrne and Brian Eno team up for essential collaboration, NZ Album Release Date Confirmed

Music legends David Byrne (the force behind Talking Heads and later as creator of the highly-regarded record-label Luaka Bop, photographer, film director, author, and solo artist) and Brian Eno (Roxy Music founding member; solo artist, collaborator with John Cale,Nico, Robert Fripp and David Bowie and uber producer extraordinaire for David Bowie, U2, John Cale and Coldplay) have paired up for their first record together as co-writers since the highly influential and critically acclaimed 1981 release, ‘My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts’. Coming to New Zealand via Rhythmethod distribution, ‘Everything That Happens Will Happen Today’ will be available in-stores January 12th  2009!

“This record was born as a dinner conversation,” says Eno. “While dining in New York with David and some other friends, I mentioned that I had accumulated a lot of music, which, despite my intentions, I had never formed into songs.” Byrne adds: “Since Brian, in his own words, “hates writing words,” I suggested having a go at some lyrics and melodies for a few tracks, and we'd take it from there. If Brian wasn't pleased with the initial results, then, well that would be that.”

Yet Eno was incredibly pleased with the way the arrangement worked out. “By and large, we stuck to our separate territories: I worked on the instrumentals, and he generally focused on the lyrics and vocals.” “Upon starting this project, we quickly realised we were making something like electronic gospel, music in which singing becomes the central event, but whose sonic landscapes are atypical of such vocal-centered tracks.”

“The foundations of some of the tracks are much like those of traditional folk, country, or gospel songs before these styles became harmonically sophisticated,” says Byrne. “Brian's chord structures were unlike anything I would have chosen myself, so I was pushed in a new direction, asked to face the unfamiliar, and this, of course, was a good thing.   The challenge was more emotional than technical: to write simple, heartfelt tunes without drawing on cliché. The results, in many cases, are uplifting, hopeful, and positive, even though some lyrics describe cars exploding, war, and similarly dark scenarios.”

Lauded by reviewers as “the most open-hearted singing of [Byrne’s] career” (Washington Post) and “as weird and wonderful as ever” (Chicago Tribune), the album has already become a critical smash the world over.

Byrne is currently supporting ‘Everything That Happens’ with a six-month world tour titled ‘David Byrne, Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno’, which features Byrne performing songs from his numerous collaborations with Brian Eno including tracks from several Talking Heads albums produced by Eno, as well as 1981’s ‘My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts’ and their newest collaborative effort. The tour is set to hit New Zealand and Australia in early 2009, and promises to be one of the new year’s most eagerly awaiting and utterly essential experiences.

TOUR DATES ARE:

Friday 13 February Wellington, Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 14 February Auckland, Aotea Centre, ASB Theatre 

International Press for ‘Everything That Happens Will Happen Today’

CBS SUNDAY MORNING “Byrne is still creating provocative works for the ear and the eye.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES “Aesthetic mavericks.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES “An uplifting experience.”

ROLLING STONE “A radiantly tuneful set.”

PITCHFORK MEDIA “A beautifully melodic, unpretentious offering.”

INTERVIEW MAGAZINE “[Everything That Happens is] really, really, really good.”

PITCHFORK MEDIA “Byrne pulls out all the stops & supplements his trademark song writing & vocal stylings with backup singers, plenty of percussion, & all manner of stage acrobatics.”

WASHINGTON POST “Byrne is doing the most open-hearted singing of his career.”

CHIAGO TRIBUNE “As weird and wonderful as ever.”

THE GLOBE & MAIL “[Byrne is] an avatar of new-wave individualism.”

THE BOSTON GLOBE “[Byrne] was the same as he ever was: brilliant.”

AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMEN “[Byrne] hasn’t lost a note of his singular voice ... it was startling how good he sounded.”

TORONTO STAR “The performance was spiritually transporting.”

THE DENVER POST “The band was incredible throughout … bouncing from one side of the stage to the other with choreography that was precise and made to seem casual right down to the dancers’ eye contact with each other and smiles.”

CHICAGO TIMES “[Byrne] never sounded stronger vocally, approaching a sort of gospel grandeur … not even the staid and not at all dance-friendly setting of the opera house could dampen the crowd’s ecstatic response.”

NATIONAL POST “[Byrne] played snarling lead guitar, busted out jerky dance moves, and sang in his newly rounded, confident tenor as everyone, dancers included, harmonized sweetly around him.”

‘Everything That Happens Will Happen Today’ is out January 2009 via Rhythmethod Distribution.

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