Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

International Musician And Recording World DECEMBER 1980 - by Chip Stern

TALKING HEADS: REMAIN IN LIGHT

Although the Talking Heads have created enough stylistic statements for a dozen bands, they've refused to settle in one place long enough to let the dust settle (unlike their nouveau pop compatriots on the New York scene, Blondie). Remain In Light is yet another quantum leap for David Byrne and company, an extraordinary work that recognizes the timeless human quality that links the dance impulses of rock, funk and the folk rhythms of Africa and the orient. This is a strange new gathering of tribes: the Head's quest is to escape the stoic 1-2-3-4 of western music, even as they extend it; each voice and instrument is layered together like a jigsaw puzzle with its own autonomous rhythm - unity in conflict, individuality in communal expression. "The power and dynamic potential of the music is in the silence," writes John Miller Chernoff in African Rhythm and African Sensibility. "Theologically speaking, it is God's drum (Drum Himself) which beats the note that is never sounded; it is God's drum which affirms the possibility of continuing vitality within the music."

It is this knowledge which animates the Talking Heads' search - which is to say, you are the music. Brian Eno's production assistance is typically larger-than-life and mysterious, yet never obscure. On side one, Eno and the Heads go for big-beat Americana, achieving the kind of tribal call and response Funkadelic used to churn out in concert, especially on the tumultuous The Great Curve, featuring the astonishing electric guitar of Adrian Belew; side two is a pilgrim's journey into the communal resolution of polyrhythms. Byrne still dreads the spectre of suburbia (Once In A Lifetime) and faceless conformity (Seen And Not Seen), but more and more he perceives a deeper reality within ("a terrible signal / too weak to even recognize"). Remain In Light tries to throw off the cloak of western thought (read: Kiddie rock) in search of a global ideal; in the process they prove that there's no limit to their own potential or that of a greater pan-ethnic music.