9/7/2023 0 Comments Songs in american utopia![]() ![]() Guest contributors include Daniel Lopatin ( Oneohtrix Point Never), Jam City, St. Produced by Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, King Krule, Savages), the album was recorded at Byrne’s home studio as well as XL Studios, Oscilloscope, and London’s Livingston Studio 1, among other locations. “The description, the discontent and the desire-I have a feeling that is what these songs touch on.” “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,” Byrne said in a statement. ![]() (The event will also be live-streamed on Facebook.) As befitting of the series’ name and the LP title, the record is said to focus on the ever-prevalent search for a better way of living. Vincent, Love This Giant, and is his first solo effort since 2004’s Grown Backwards.īyrne will formally detail American Utopia during the latest presentation of his “Reasons to be Cheerful” series today at 12:30 pm EST at New York City’s New School. The full-length marks the art-rock auteur’s first release since his 2012 collaboration with St. American Utopia is an album of beautiful and witty surfaces stretched over a sea of troubled waters, and if Byrne is rarely inclined to give direct answers to the questions he asks, it's obvious this isn't a joke, it's an ambitious work from an important American artist.David Byrne has announced his forthcoming new album, American Utopia, due out March 9th via Todomundo/Nonesuch Records. In concept, American Utopia bears faint resemblance to the cheerfully odd average Americans who populated Talking Heads' 1986 album True Stories (and Byrne's accompanying feature film), but this album's wit is more pointed, the tone is cooler and less secure, and the cumulative effect less joyous and a bit more puzzled about what awaits us with the next dawn. ![]() The final product is a sonic crazy quilt that's rich and evocative, by turns ominous and seductive, and the stylistic shape-shifting that dominates these tracks suits the many moods of Byrne's characters very well indeed. (Animals, too - a variety of critters pop up in "Every Day Is a Miracle," and "Dog's Mind" imagines how our canine friends view the world.) Not everything in Byrne's Bizarro World America is a good time, especially on "Gasoline and Dirty Sheets" and "This Is That." But much of this album portrays folks who are both dazzled and overwhelmed by the abundant possibilities presented in "It's Not Dark Up Here," "Everybody's Coming to My House," and "I Dance Like This." American Utopia began as a series of rhythm tracks created by Brian Eno, which Byrne then fashioned into songs, with a variety of other collaborators reshaping the results, including co-producers Rodaidh McDonald and Patrick Dillett and musicians Daniel Lopatin, Thomas Bartlett, and Joey Waronker. At a time when America has been thrown into a state of chaos - something Byrne witnessed and creatively reacted to as an artist during the Reagan era - here he imagines what appears to be an alternate version of the United States and the people who live in it. ![]() "Is this meant ironically? Is it a joke? Do I mean this seriously? In what way?" David Byrne seems to be simultaneously inviting and acknowledging some likely reactions to his 2018 album, American Utopia, in his own liner notes. ![]()
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