Byrne 'finishing off Fatboy CD'
BBC News [Link]
By Damian Jones
9 April 2009

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has revealed he is putting the finishing touches to a new album with Fatboy Slim, aka Norman Cook. The pair have roped in a host of guest stars for the project, Here Lies Love, including Santigold and Roisin Murphy.

The concept album trails the life of Imelda Marcos, the widow of former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

"We've got three more singers who have still to record on it but we're almost there," Byrne told BBC 6 Music.

"There is a different singer on every song - including Sharon Jones [from Amy Winehouse's backing band The Dap Tones], Alice Russell and Tori Amos," he added.

"There's a lot of singers, it goes on and on."

Byrne is performing at London's Royal Festival Hall over Easter weekend with U2 and Coldplay producer Brian Eno as part of the Ether festival.

The pair are set to play tracks from their numerous collaborations - starting with Talking Heads in the 1970s through to their 2008 album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Talking about that album, Byrne said: "Last spring I could see we were going to have enough songs for a record and that it was nearing completion and I really was enjoying singing the songs," he said.

"I thought it would be a shame to never ever get to sing it again, so we decided to do these dates."

Byrne said he initially only intended to sing tracks from the recent album for the pair of Royal Festival Hall concerts.

But he then had a change of heart.

"I thought, 'I don't want to just do a hodge-podge of stuff'," he explained. "Then I realised I could thematically bring some stuff in that the audience would like to hear, using Eno as a connection.

"So that opened the way to older stuff and newer stuff and seeing if we could thread the two."

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