Remain In Light (Remastered & Expanded/+DVDA) - Talking Heads

...superb extended line-up for the Remain In Light tour, performing "Crosseyed And Painless" and "Once In A Lifetime"; alas, the promo vids for these two songs are not included. A particular shame, given the legendary status of the "Once In A Lifetime" clip.

An abjectly essential purchase, and while I'm aware that as a 36 year old I may never again experience the (aural) visceral rush I got when I first heard ... more

The very dictionary definition of an "art school" band, Talking Heads fell together at the Rhode Island School of Design in the mid 70s. Emerging at the time of punk they, like many others, were lazily thrown under that same banner. But in truth, apart from the stark minimalism of their early material, they had little in common with the Ramones (despite often opening for them), and as time went on, the full breadth of their capabilities became thrillingly evident.

Hooking up with Brian Eno after their marginally unsatisfactory debut "'77", the Heads went on one of the great runs of albums in the history of recorded sound. "Remain In Light" (1980) is the final entry in the Eno-produced trilogy and is almost certainly their most influential record (a lot of the 80s interest in World Music starts here, which might surprise Paul Simon's PR department), even if "Fear Of Music" (1979) is their best album and "More Songs About Buildings And Food" (1978) remains my favourite. Eno's influence (depending on which of the protagonists you believe) becomes more evident as the albums progress; he started by "merely" adding his own ambient atmosphere to the Heads' edgy New-Wave patter, gradually augmenting it with more treatments and the odd polyrhythm and highlife guitar, before we arrive at the psychedelic funk blowout that is "Remain In Light".

Eno and Heads singer David Byrne had been working on a seperate record called "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts", which overlaid complex, repetitive rhythms with "found" vocals (tapes of radio show contributors, vocals from ethnic music, etc); the net effect was to produce a type of early rap record. The new Heads album continued these explorations, only this time dense electronics and wild rhythm/lead guitar hold the polyrhythms together. What emerges still sounds staggering.

This is a rare album which genuinely does not have a duff track. Of particularly high quality are "Crosseyed And Painless", a fluid tune with Byrne's classic 'facts' rap towards the close (check out the no-budget promo video made by Toni "Hey Mickey" Basil to see where Michael Jackson nicked the Moonwalk from), The Great Curve with its stacked vocals and apocalyptic Adrian Belew guitar shrieks, "Houses In Motion" with its near-cribbing of the Stevie Wonder "Superstitious" bassline and distorted solo trumpet, "Seen And Not Seen" with its spoken vocal floating over a very Eno-esque soundscape, and "The Overload", allegedly an attempt to do a Joy Division song despite not having actually heard Joy Division (based on someone's description of their sound) and a deeply worrying experience on headphones!

I purposely haven't mentioned "Once In A Lifetime", the most famous track on the record; seeing as this was the first single I ever bought, I'm biased. Suffice to say, if you liked that, this album (which is definitely not lowest common denominator listening) should be right up your street.

The disc comes as a double sider; the remastered CD (which is far crisper than the previously released version) on one side, and the DVD-A on the other. The 5:1 mix is amazing (and award-winning); I've had 25 years of listening to this album, and it was revelatory, with countless things I'd never noticed before swirling around the periphery. The disc also includes two live clips of the superb extended line-up for the Remain In Light tour, performing "Crosseyed And Painless" and "Once In A Lifetime"; alas, the promo vids for these two songs are not included. A particular shame, given the legendary status of the "Once In A Lifetime" clip.

An abjectly essential purchase, and while I'm aware that as a 36 year old I may never again experience the (aural) visceral rush I got when I first heard this album, at least I can console myself that I was pretty cool for a 10 year old ;-) 

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