His Luaka Bop label, meanwhile, unearthed interdisciplinary world music like Indian psych, Brazilian tropicalismo and Southern gothic. In Talking Heads, he moved from art rock, through funk and African rhythms, while his solo career includes excursions into Latin pop, film soundtracks and a musical about Imelda Marcos. Much of Byrne's remarkable career has similarly involved projects that enable him to push his own boundaries, taking him out of his comfort zone to work alongside musicians from different disciplines and corners of the world. It is, you suspect, something Byrne enjoys: a tricky puzzle as much to be savoured as it is solved. Like the untouched food on the table, it's ignored in favour of a preoccupation with the work at hand, which concerns his curating of this year's Meltdown, the scheduling of which he likens to Tetris, trying to get all these different acts in different venues at different times to fit in a harmonious sequence. Not that Byrne's paying the view too much attention. Today, we're at the very upper limit of Eno's register, in a penthouse boardroom affording a marvellous widescreen vista of the Thames and across to the dome of St Paul's. We're in a room at the Royal Festival hall, adjacent to an elevator programmed by Byrne's friend and frequent collaborator Brian Eno to produce keening choral glissandos depending on whether you're ascending or descending. it's an apt look that hints at his exploratory cultural attitude, always searching out the unexpected and unusual. Today, his hair now strikingly silver, he's dressed in a cool seersucker suit, a sort of cross between upscale country cowpoke and intrepid safari-suited explorer. To be discussed: Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Imelda Marcos, "fake Mormon hymns", St Vincent and how Byrne invented hip-hop by accident.ĭavid Byrne has always had a striking sense of appearance, from the proto-preppy understatement of his early Talking heads persona to the legendary Big Suit of Stop Making Sense. Turn on javascript to use the drop-down menus.Ī once-in-a-lifetime interview with the great David Byrne, as the intrepid musical explorer prepares to curate this year's Meltdown festival in London.
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