David Byrne and St Vincent's monumentally funky "Weekend in the Dust"

David Byrne and St Vincent (AKA "Annie") have collaborated on a new album called "Love This Giant," which will come out in Sept. If you pre-order now ($9 for electronic delivery, $11 for electronic + CD), you get a bonus preview track called "Weekend in the Dust," which I am listening to at this moment, and I can barely type for the monumental awesome funkiness thereof. Byrne writes:

On “Weekend in the Dust”, I came up with some brass riffs and swells that sounded pretty funky to me. I then sent those to Annie and she wrote a cool vocal melody over it (later she wrote words too). We both arranged her vocal and other elements of the track a bit further—still working with horn samples temporarily. Finally, we passed this one to baritone sax monster Lenny Pickett, ex Tower Of Power and current Borneo Horns and SNL bandleader, for arranging. I'd previously worked with Lenny on a Talking Heads track (“Blind”) so I know he is really good at convoluted and funky—and that describes this track pretty well. We recorded the whole band playing it in the studio in Hoboken, which I arrived at one morning in March via bicycle and ferry. Nice!

I'm interviewing Byrne on stage at Toronto's International Festival of Authors at the Harbourfront centre in September, as part of the tour for his forthcoming book How Music Works and my forthcoming books Rapture of the Nerds (with @cstross) and Pirate Cinema. I got an advance copy of it last week and I've been stealing all the moments I can find to read it.

David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant

• [esquire]

  Lenny Pickett is such a great saxophonist.  He’s been on the scene for 40 years now and he does things that other sax players have no idea how to reproduce.  He’s got a great funky pop sound, but also has a firm foothold in the avant garde.  He’s my hero.

  And congratulations to David Byrne for always evolving, always finding a fresh voice.  I love that guy.  He’s my hero too.

• [cleek]

  so… what’s that on her jaw?

  • [BBNinja]

    It looks…Zerg-ish.

  • [Sinchy]

    And does Byrne really have a chin so cleft?

  • [Jim Saul]

    Artistic photoshop freakiness on both of them.

    Though Byrne’s looks pretty close to some over-the-top plastic surgery other stars have ill-advisedly gotten.

  • [KaiBeezy]

    slipped and fell into uncanny valley
    see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_to_the_Rhythm

  • [Bad Juju]

    That’s where I’ve seen them before – the creepy Duracell family: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fZkyUuWkvdc/TlphF24aH2I/AAAAAAAAH0Q/QAJB0YJuqL4/s1600/putterman.jpg

• [latelatelateshow]

  Sounds like Byrne has recovered from the meandering music of his Imelda Marcos concept album.Say what you want about how stiflingTalking Heads were for Byrne, at the very least the group provided him with some focus and guidance which his solo work often lacks

  • [Werther deGoethe]

    Maybe because Disco was my informative years, and I love concept albums, I found Here Lies Love (and its “meandering music”) to be one of the most exciting and listenable albums I’ve heard in many years. The back story is inspired and Fatboy Slim brings a lovely, old funk style to the affair.

     This sounds just as delicious.

• [SofaKing]

  LOVE the first track, Who (which by the way is available for free download simply by providing your email address)… seriously funky horns.  Can’t wait to hear the rest!

• [ChickieD]

  They’ve played cuts off this album on a local station and it is so good.

• [voiceinthedistance]

  I can’t look at Annie like this.  This is wrong!

• [sdmikev]

   Sounds like fun to me.  We saw her earlier this year and I enjoyed her show quite a bit.  I’ll definitely be getting tix for this one as well.  Thankfully they are coming to town!

• [Ian Wood]

  Via bicycle and ferry.

  All right then.

• [timquinn]

  But why don’t either of them have a catchy middle name, you know, like ‘fucking?’