Arto Lindsay
On the back cover of his new album, Feelings, David Byrne is portrayed as a computer-generated action figure sporting some dope club-kid duds. Inside the package is a spinner you can use to program the mood of this “whining yuppie,” as Legs McNeil pegged him last year, by changing his facial expression. It seems an odd flash of self-awareness for Byrne, who since leaving the Talking Heads has taken on musical styles like Kate Moss changes clothes. He did the obligatory electronic-collage work with Brian Eno, dumped heavy Fela grooves all over the middle-period Talking Heads records, even put in a stint as a Santeria gringo. Now, with rock dead yet again, Byrne’s backed off from the quasi-alternative bent of his last few records to resume his search for the cutting edge. This time around, we get traces of his beloved Latin music, a little bit of mod exotica here, and a lot of trip-hop there. To get it right he hired the popular British trio Morcheeba to back him on half the album.
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It’s admirable that Byrne continues to develop new musical interests–in fact, his Luaka Bop label has made available some truly terrific music from around the world. But his game of stylistic hopscotch has grown awfully tedious. Rather than spending years with a music and really figuring out what makes it tick, Byrne either buys the musicians who make it or steals just enough from them to apply exotic cosmetic flourishes to his own desiccated songcraft. Then he moves on.
While Byrne inhabits the Brazilian style like a hermit crab carrying another creature’s shell, on O Corpo and the new Mundo Civilizado Lindsay soaks in it like he’s taking a bubble bath. This comfort allows him to be a little playful, throwing into the mix a couple of sublimely laconic covers: Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful” and Prince’s “Erotic City,” both of which just reinforce Lindsay’s sensualist aesthetic.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): album cover.
