Last year, towering figure David Byrne signed to Matador and released Who Is The Sky?, his first album in seven years. Byrne recorded the LP with Harry Styles collaborator Kid Harpoon, and it included collaborations with people like Hayley Williams and St. Vincent. Since that record came out, Byrne has been awfully busy, touring with a mesmerizing, elaborate new live show. He covered Olivia Rodrigo. He wrote a new song of nothing but Elon Musk quotes. Today, he releases a Who Is The Sky? deluxe edition that adds four tracks.
One of the extra songs on the Who Is The Sky? deluxe is "T Shirt," the live staple that Byrne released soon after the album came out. He has also added on two songs from the LP sessions, "My Madness" and "What And Where," as well as a new version of the Hayley Williams duet "What Is The Reason For It?," this one recorded instead with Natalia Lafourcade (who co-wrote it) and the Mexican Institute Of Sound. Here's what Byrne says about the deluxe in a press release:
"WHAT'S AN ALBUM?"
Good question. Vinyl fans and crate diggers have a sense of an album as fixed thing — a set of songs on a physical object — in a specific order that presumably the artist thinks makes for a cohesive listening experience.
But streaming and downloads turned all that on its head. Albums can be super long, super short, and the songs can change over time. The only consistent thing might be that the songs were composed and recorded around a similar time — so they speak to that time and place, and have some sort of sonic continuity.
So here's my most recent album now expanded with two songs that were cut, not because they weren't good (I hope) but to give the initial album a nice variety of grooves and subjects. "My Madness" — this is one of my personal favorites — the singer imagines their "madness" as a separate entity from themselves, one that they come to love, understand and respect. There's a reconciliation. There's an old song ("T Shirt") that we added to our set list with images of statements folks wear on their T Shirts. And a wonderful reimagining of "What Is The Reason For It?" created by Mexican Institute of Sound and co-written and sung by Natalia Lafoucade.
Enjoy
Check out the new additions below.
The deluxe digital version of Who Is The Sky? is out now on Matador. Byrne has two shows left on his year-long tour — 9/17 at Saratoga's Saratoga Performing Arts Center and 9/19 at Queens' Forest Hills Stadium.
