David Byrne - The Catherine Wheel

Sounding more like a missing Talking Heads session than anything remotely like David Byrne's 1990s-era work, The Catherine Wheel is at root a display of funky, off-time rhythms and vamps with Byrne involved at every level. The music was composed and produced to accompany a Twyla Tharp-choreographed dance event, and for program music it's brilliant enough to stand alone. The 73 minutes are almost seamless, weaving ambient soundscapes with loopy percussion-backed bass runs with guitar strumming across the top. Byrne shows his command of dramatic scoring here, spreading his wings across a huge range of styles and doing so in a way that sounds both like his old band and entirely different from them. You can hear in The Catherine Wheel where Byrne was heading (i.e., heavily rhythmic music) years before the Heads were disbanded and he ventured into life as a Brazilian- and Latin-music impresario. It's the sound of a young genius having free reign, and as such it's exceptional. --Andrew Bartlett Amazon.com essential recording

Experimental Music.

This album contains a lot of experimental music, with a few early Talking Heads type songs sprinkled in. If you like Brian Eno's experimental music, you will like this album. July 24, 2006

amazing

I find the phrasing of the amazon product review rather odd: "Sounding more like a missing Talking Heads session than anything remotely like David Byrne's 1990s-era work [...]"... the implication seemingly that that's odd, as if he did it in the 90's so we should expect it to sound like some of his 90's work... I mean, this was done in 1981, why would it sound like his Byrne's 90's work? Regardless, the album sounds amazingly fresh, 25 years later... too bad about the missing tracks and the censored track... there was some material where quotes from the Koran were sampled, and that was removed out of fear that it might give offence... sad, how our freedom-of-expression culture of the West abandons principle at a drop of the hat, bidden or unbidden... oh well... I bought this when it first came out and loved it from the first time I put it on... of course, Eno's influence is quite apparent, and the result is outstanding... it seems to me, Byrne has yet to match the brilliance of this record in the past 20 years... here's hoping for another one like this from Mr. Byrne... April 8, 2006

A hand in many pies

Another reviewer called this the "lost Talking Heads album," which I think is accurate and also hints at a faint yearning, among many of Byrne's most ardent fans (of which I am one), to hear more of the sound that got them hooked in the first place. For Byrne, Talking Heads has become an albatross, and he seems resentful of his fans' unwillingness to accept his exploration of other avenues.

Well, okay; fair enough. But Byrne's persona within the context of Talking Heads is arguably one of the most intriguing in rock music, and it's only natural for followers to crave access to more. The Talking Heads catalogue has never been friendly to the completist mentality, as there's not a wealth of unreleased material surfacing -- not even with the recent "Once in a Lifetime" and "Brick" box sets. However, what Byrne seems to be doing with his solo career, or wanting to do, is to demystify himself, and he's tried doing this through a variety of measures: with his "unplugged" stint; with his "personal" work on his self-titled album and recent 'Grown Backwards'; with his down-to-earth collaborations with artists such as Richard Thompson; and with the folksy conversational style he's adopted in his solo concerts. But the overarching impression still is of a man awkwardly inhabiting a physical body within the physical world, and these attempts to convey a reaching of comfort within these two spaces seem largely calculated. Additionally, it remains unclear as to whether the vitality and energy the man once radiated is being suppressed or has simply dissipated.

One thing that hasn't changed about Byrne is that he's still what detractors would call a dilettant or a tourist, and what friendlier followers would call versatile. Objectively, it's fair to say that he's always had his hands in many pies, working in and adopting as many mediums as his talents will allow. One of the most compelling results of this dilettantism/versatility was his collaboration with choreographer Twyla Tharp for the Broadway ballet "The Catherine Wheel." They don't do stuff like this on Broadway anymore. Current Broadway, safe and posh, is to early '80s Broadway what current Hollywood is to 1970s Hollywood, before Michael Cimino killed it for everyone. Listening to "The Catherine Wheel" evokes this and, among many other things, the excitement of a gifted and vital artist (Byrne) in great demand. Byrne dove into this as though it were the important task that it was, taking complete command of his assignment without a shred of unease. "His Wife Refused," "Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open), "What a Day That Was," and "Big Business" are practically Talking Heads songs and rank among the best of the Heads' work, while "Ade," "The Red House," "Black Flag," and others, create soundscapes that are at once exotic, exciting, and comforting. This album, next to (and slightly surpassing) 'Rei Momo,' remains Byrne's best and most assured solo album.
October 10, 2005

Essential Byrne

Best of meat. Of his remarkable unseen and unrated, one to keep forever. July 18, 2005

ONE OF THE BEST EVER, but where is the COMPLETE score on CD?

I bought this cassette back in junior high school when I was truly obsessed with TALKING HEADS - they had just made the brave leap forward with the ENO-helmed REMAIN IN LIGHT, which remains in my TOP 10 of all time albums - but THIS original score for Twyla Tharp's dance production is in many ways even more mind-blowing, ground-breaking, and seminal - here Byrne is given free reign to do his thang and explore the very limits of music, percussion, vocals, and song structure, or lack thereof...truly truly SPELL-BINDING stuff! But here's the rub: my original long OOP cassette version that WB released (BLUE cover, not RED) contains the COMPLETE score, with many tracks/sections NOT found on the sadly abbreviated CD - I guess they couldn't fit all of its BRILLIANCE on one CD, so they chose to edit - now that it's legendary, why not re-issue an expanded, double-CD with the entire score for posterity?! And why not include some of the 12" MIXES of BIG BUSINESS, etc released on 12" only singles at the time?! Trust me, once you buy this and start listening, you will come back to it over & over again - this is over two decades and I still come back to it every few months - WAY AHEAD OF ITS TIME, NEVER GROWS OLD! Sadly, Byrne would never top this...I find all of this later TALKING HEADS (post-Speaking In Tongues) and solo projects dry, brittle, flat, and dull - that tired "world music" white man's burden trap. Oh well. At least we have THIS to cherish. November 28, 2004

More reviews at Amazon.com ...