David Byrne has released an updated edition of Who Is the Sky? in celebration of its recent one-year anniversary that includes four new tracks—including “My Madness,” which arrives with a vibrant music video. Describing this particular song as one of his “personal favorites,” Byrne shared what it’s all about: “[T]he singer imagines their ‘madness’ as a separate entity from themselves, one that they come to love, understand and respect. There’s a reconciliation.”
As for the re-release, Byrne elucidated in a very David-Byrne statement: “‘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.”
The reissue additionally includes “What and Where,” the live favorite “T Shirt,” and the Mexican tour promo “¿Cúal es la Razón?,” a collaboration with Natalia Lafoucade and Mexican Institute of Sound that reimagined the album cut “What Is the Reason for It?” The updated edition also comes ahead of Byrne’s “Who Is the Sky? World Tour” finale at Forest Hills Stadium in New York, set for this Saturday.
Check out the new cut below, and stream the deluxe edition of Who Is the Sky? here.
