05 October 2012

David Byrne 'In The Future' live - 1988

In 1985, David Byrne composed an album called 'Music For The Knee Plays' for a seemingly outlandish opera called 'The Civil Wars' by Robert Wilson. He recorded it live for the BBC in 1988 with Les Miserables brass band and this is one song from it, 'In The Future'. I'm not sure what's going on but I highly approve:



You can watch the whole thing live in parts on youtube. It is pleasingly bizarre with gorgeous brass and odd spoken word throughout; start with part one here, if you fancy it.

The whole opera thing sounds amazingly mental; according to Wikipedia: "The Civil Wars was conceived as a single daylong piece of music theatre to accompany the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Six different composers from six different countries were to compose sections of Wilson's text inspired by the American Civil War. After initial premieres in their countries of origin, the six parts were to be fused in one epic performance in Los Angeles during the games, a parallel to the internationalist ideals of the Olympic movementThe premiere of the full work was cancelled when funding failed to materialize (despite the Olympic Committee's offer of matching funds) and deadlines were not met." For more, go to /wiki/The_Civil_Wars.

www.davidbyrne.com/

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