David Byrne - Who Is The Sky?

Name: David Byrne - Who Is The Sky?
Brand: Matador
SKU: OLE2178LPJP
Price: 1177.0 TWD
Availability: InStock

Genre: ART ROCK

Format: 1LP "Apple Green" Colored with Japanese Obi Limited Edition

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1LP "Apple Green" Colored with Japanese Obi Limited Edition
Release Date: 5/9/2025
Label: Matador

1LP "Apple Green" Colored Limited Edition
Release Date: 5/9/2025
Label: Matador

1LP "Lemon Yellow" Colored Edition
Release Date: 5/9/2025
Label: Matador

1LP Black Edition
Release Date: 5/9/2025
Label: Matador

Japanese CD Edition with Bonus Track
Release Date: 5/9/2025
Label: Matador

E.U.CD Edition
Release Date: 5/9/2025
Label: Matador

* Each LP and CD includes A4 Clear file (while supplies last)

David Byrne releases Who Is the Sky?, his first new album since 2018’s acclaimed and award-winning American Utopia, via Matador Records. The album was produced by the Grammy-winning Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus), while its 12 songs were arranged by the members of New York-based chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra.

Musical friends old and new, including St. Vincent, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, The Smile drummer Tom Skinner, and American Utopia percussionist Mauro Refosco, also make appearances on Who Is the Sky?, which is led by the infectious single "Everybody Laughs."

"Someone I know said, ‘David, you use the word ‘everybody’ a lot.’ I suppose I do that to give an anthropological view of life in New York as we know it,” says Byrne. “Everybody lives, dies, laughs, cries, sleeps and stares at the ceiling. Everybody’s wearing everybody else’s shoes, which not everybody does, but I have done. I tried to sing about these things that could be seen as negative in a way balanced by an uplifting feeling from the groove and the melody, especially at the end, when St. Vincent and I are doing a lot of hollering and singing together. Music can do that – hold opposites simultaneously. I realized that when singing with Robyn earlier this year. Her songs are often sad, but the music is joyous.”

Byrne was inspired to enlist Ghost Train Orchestra for the album after hearing their 2023 tribute album to the blind New York composer and street poet Moondog, and later that year jumped on stage with the group during a Brooklyn performance. Enticed by the 15-member Ghost Train’s varied instrumental lineup – which includes drums, percussion, guitar and bass along with strings, winds and brass – he thought to himself, “what if that’s what these new songs of mine sounded like?”

Byrne asked if they’d want to serve as his band for the Who Is the Sky? sessions, and they quickly agreed. Mixed by Mark “Spike” Stent and mastered by Emily Lazar, the finished product is about both hiding and revealing, or as Byrne puts it, “a chance to be the mythical creature we all harbor inside. A chance to step into another reality. A chance to transcend and escape from the prison of our ‘selves.’”

These concepts are heavily incorporated in the Who Is The Sky? album package, which was designed by Shira Inbar and finds Byrne nearly obscured by radiating, colored patterns and psychedelic, spiky outfits designed by Belgian artist Tom Van Der Borght.

“At my age, at least for me, there's a ‘don't give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in,” Byrne says. “I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I'm doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure. There's always a bit of, ‘how do I work this?’ I've found that not every collaboration works, but often when they do, it's because I'm able to clearly impart what it is I'm trying to do. They hopefully get that, and as a result, we're now joined together heading to the same unknown place."

1LP "Apple Green" Colored with Japanese Obi Limited Edition 1LP "Apple Green" Colored Limited Edition 1LP "Lemon Yellow" Colored Edition 1LP Black Edition Japanese CD Edition with Bonus Track E.U.CD Edition

A1 Everybody Laughs
A2 When We Are Singing
A3 My Apartment Is My Friend
A4 A Door Called No
A5 What Is The Reason For It?
A6 I Met The Buddha At A Downtown Party
B7 Don't Be Like That
B8 The Avant Garde
B9 Moisturizing Thing
B10 I'm An Outsider
B11 She Explains Things To Me
B12 The Truth
B13 DefCon

01. Everybody Laughs
02. When We Are Singing
03. My Apartment Is My Friend
04. A Door Called No
05. What Is The Reason For It?
06. I Met The Buddha at a Downtown Party
07. Don't Be Like That
08. The Avant Garde
09. Moisturizing Thing
10. I'm an Outsider
11. She Explains Things To Me
12. The Truth
13. DefCon (Bonus track for Japan)

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David Byrne - Who Is The Sky?

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