Beating Heads

At the same time, he tried to see how the resulting patterns of waves agreed with the natural electrical vibrations of the brain, because it was Gilbert's theory...that all existing tunes were merely crude approximations to one fundamental melody. --Arthur C. Clarke, The Ultimate Memory

IN THE FALL issue of the Playboy Guide to Electronic Entertainment, some pop stars were asked what albums they had been listening to lately. While most listed mainstream stuff like Pink Floyd and the Police, David Byrne, leader of the Talking Heads, mentioned "Vietnam Music Instrumental Popular Songs" by Tran Quang Hai and Bach Yin, "Ethiopian Polyphony and Vocal Techniques" and "The Popular Music of North Africa" (on Vogue Records in case the Coop is out of it and you have to order).

If I had to predict which song from Fear of Music, the last Talking Heads album, best indicated where the group was going, I would have suggested "Life During Wartime," a periodic dance tune that is easily the biggest hit they've had (getting more play than "Psycho Killer" from the Talking Heads: '77 album). An entire album like that probably would have broken them into the big time. But art-rock groups do not always seek mainstream acceptance. The Talking Heads have instead followed the path started by "I Zimbra," a seemingly one-shot affair that got heavy play on disco stations because of the nonsense lyrics' throbbing polyrhythmic background.

He built a machine that would automatically construct patterns of sound according to the laws he'd uncovered. He had banks of oscillators and mixers--in fact, he modified an ordinary electronic organ for this part of the apparatus--which were controlled by his composing machine.

Eno: Mr. Experimental Music. The wunderkind of the music world's intelligentsia, Brian Eno had appeared with the early Roxy Music, Robert Fripp, Phil Manzanera and with his own solo efforts, and has amassed an awesome catalog of art-rock. He has produced the last two Talking Heads albums and was, for all practical purposes, another member of the band. But now on the new album he is given credit for everything except wrapping the albums in cellophane. Are the Talking Heads to become just another Eno subsidiary?

Musicians had been groping for it down the centuries, but they didn't know what they were doing because they were ignorant of the relation between music and mind. Now that this had been unravelled, it should be possible to discover the Ultimate Melody.

The new Talking Heads album is called Remain In Light. There's a nice computer graphic on the back, showing Russian warplanes over a mountain range. You can tell that the original members of the band--Byrne, guitarist and keyboard player Jerry Harrison (late of Harvard), Bassist Tina Weymouth and Drummer Chris Frantz--met in art school. They're joined on this album by Adrian Belew, Jose Rossy, Jon Hassel, Nona Hendryx and the omnipresent Eno. Robert Palmer is among the many given credit for percussion but he probably just hit a bottle with a spoon on one song.

Fortunately, this album has not followed the path of the Bowie-Eno collaborations, which allowed Eno's synthesizers, loops and feedbacks to dictate the tone. Instead, the Heads have chosen their own tone, and the tone is funk. People knew things were up with the band when they toured this summer with Parliament-Funkadelic's horn section, and then it was announced that Byrne and Eno would release an album based on African tribal songs called My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (whose release has since been blocked by legal difficulties).

So was this to be another white-group-seeks-its- Black-roots album, or was the most intellectual group in music today examining a purer form of rhythm and blues? This David Byrne and Brian Eno meet James Brown's godfather album is risky business; it is bound to alienate someone.

At any rate he had been listening for several hundred times at least to that same melody. When his assistant found him, he seemed to be in a trance.

Remain In Light is part masterpiece, part flop. This is not another tribute to the Black rhythm and blues heritage of rock--it is not rock at all. It is a synthesis of modern lyrics and recording techniques with basic tribal African polyrhythms. At times the combination seems forced and unnatural, like cookies and ketchup, but on about half the songs--most notably "Once In A Lifetime"--the combo clicks like chocolate and peanut butter.

The songs were recorded in a style similar to that used by funk groups and reggae dubbing: a core band records basic all-purpose instrumentals (and on this album the music is really basic--one chord rhythms, no choruses, bridges, passages) and then later on lyrics and perhaps a solo instrument are dubbed in. Too bad that Eno couldn't leave well enough alone and had to tinker with the sound more. On "Houses in Motion" he makes a guitar sound like an Arab calling the faithful to pray: a nice trick but an unnecessary diversion. At least four recording processes and locations along with a cast of thousands are listed on the credits, in fact. In a Newsweek article in 19778 (when the Heads were the new wave darlings of the critics), Chris Frantz explained that the band stood for, among other things, "Anti-overprofessionalism." And the Ramones latest album was produced by Phil Spector.

UPON FIRST LISTENING, you might think that side one is just some variations on a repetitive theme. Second listening might lend the same impression. Eventually "Cross-eyed and Painless" (the first single to be released) and "The Great Curve" emerge as the kind of songs Byrne was looking for: a driving variation of funk with lyrics almost as entertaining as those of Parliament-- "The world moves on a woman's hips, the world moves and it swivels and bops." Unfortunately, "Born Under Punches," like "Seen and Not Seen" on side two, is a victim of the risk that Byrne took: the combination doesn't work and you have Talking Head lyrics unnaturally juxtaposed upon polyrhythms, with the result of a monotone.

But what is the closing tune, "The Overload," doing on the album? Even Byrne calls it an anomaly. It is reminiscent of a funeral march but the critics have been comparing it to the latest posthumously popularized group Joy Division. It sounds to me like Eno's obsession, Ambient Music. In concept, Ambient Music attempts to create the ambience of listening to music without the music. In practice, it sounds like a kitchen with all the electric appliances on. The fact that Eno has released about ten albums in the last five years using a concept good for two albums at the most, combined with the realization that Devo, Roxy Music and even the Talking Heads have all released superior albums to the ones they did with him, has led to the current critical backlash against the man who in art-rock circles could once do no wrong.

But the Heads, in spite of Eno, still have a lot of first-class material on Remain In Light. "The Great Curve," "Houses In Motion," "The Listening Wind," and "Once In A Lifetime" set the standards by which the Heads new music will be judged. "Once In A Lifetime" is an incredibly complex song that is in fact three songs laid on one backround--polylyrics for plyrhythms. The continual exuberance of the polyrhythms matches the Bo Diddley beat in providing an automatic source of energy in a song, and this should encourage many groups to get funky. Could this be the trend of the eighties? Will Disco meet Rock by way of Africa?

He's lost all consciousness of the outer world, and has to be fed intravenously, He never moves or reacts to external stimuli, but sometimes, they tell me, he twitches in a peculiar way as if he is beating time...

So the scientist who found the ultimate melody came to a sad end--Byrne and Eno take note. How far they will continue to search for it in the bush, like a musical Stanley and Livingston, will largely be determined by the reaction to this album and how well they can duplicate the funk/permanent wave fusion in concert. Byrne was able to toss aside his carefree/paranoid psycho image in one album and can abandon this turn just as easily. What will the '81 Talking Heads approach be: guitars, synthesizers or David Byrne beating out a polyrhythm on a hollowed-out log?