Maps of Music

Love This Giant (2012)

Where the lyrics of Love This Giant take you, and where it was really made.

Originally slated for just one live performance, this brass-heavy collaboration grew into a full studio album.

Key places

Where the brass was recorded (2012)

Recording site Water Music Recorders — All brass parts for the album were recorded at Water Music Studios in Hoboken, New Jersey. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Love This Giant: studio album made in collaboration by David Byrne and St. Vincent (Annie Clark)
• Released 10 September 2012 in the United Kingdom on 4AD and Todo Mundo; the US release followed the next day
• Byrne's ninth studio album overall and Clark's fourth
• Brass-centred record built around a large horn section
• Recording credits list Water Music Studios in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Patrick Dillett's Studio in New York

Background

• Byrne and Clark began working together in late 2009
• They used the writing and promotion process Byrne had earlier used on his 2008 collaboration with Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
• The duo had previously played together live at an Actor Tour concert and on the album Here Lies Love
• They met in 2009 at a Radio City Music Hall benefit concert for the AIDS/HIV charity Dark Was the Night
• The collaboration grew out of a second meeting at the New York thrift shop Housing Works, where Björk and Dirty Projectors were performing
• A concert organizer suggested the two try a similar collaboration
• The work was first slated for only a single live performance
• Clark suggested adding brass, and the two realized they could write original music around horns
• Clark had just recorded Actor, which used a lot of woodwind and strings, so brass was new to her
• They enlisted a variety of brass musicians to augment their songwriting, then toured the following year to promote the album
• Byrne later performed a reworked version of "I Should Watch TV" in his American Utopia Tour and its Broadway production

Recording

• The musicians composed lyrics in person and via e-mail, which produced an entire album's worth of material
• Byrne and Clark each wrote and sang their own lyrics, except "The Forest Awakes", which Byrne wrote and Clark sings
• The instrumentation and funk grooves led Byrne away from his usual personal lyrics toward larger themes
• Clark emphasized the art music nature of the recordings while composing
• All brass was recorded at Water Music Studios, Hoboken, NJ
• All additional elements were recorded at Patrick Dillett's Studio, New York, NY
• Mastering was done at Sterling Sound in New York City by Greg Calbi
• Patrick Dillett handled production and mixing, and John Congleton handled production and drum programming

Cover

• The cover was inspired by Beauty and the Beast, with Byrne as a Buzz Lightyear-like beauty and Clark as a grotesque beast
• The duo first planned a plastic beauty and a feral beast as a joke about their age difference
• They changed the idea after meeting the prosthetics designer Gabe Bartalos
• Richard Burbridge shot the cover photo

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born May 14, 1952 in Dumbarton, Scotland; family moved to Canada and then Arbutus, Maryland, USA.
• Co-founded Talking Heads in New York City in 1975 as founding member, principal songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist.

Members

• Byrne was the youngest member of Talking Heads; Jerry Harrison joined in 1977.

Career

• Talking Heads released eight studio albums, seven of them certified gold or platinum, and disbanded in 1991; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
• Solo career began in 1981 with My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (with Brian Eno), with solo work accelerating after Talking Heads' hiatus in 1988.
• Worked across film, theatre, opera, fiction and non-fiction; won an Academy Award, a Grammy, a Special Tony Award and a Golden Globe.
• Collaborators include Brian Eno, Fatboy Slim, Ryuichi Sakamoto, St. Vincent and X-Press 2.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Love This Giant has received generally positive reviews; aggregator Metacritic scores it 77 from 36 reviews, a generally favorable rating
• BBC Music's Jude Clarke calls the album a perfect cerebral pop pairing that improves and deepens on each listen, citing the songwriting and the singers' voices
• The Skinny's Bram E. Gieben praised the engaging musical conversation between the two singers but criticized the musicianship for lacking experimentation
• Heather Phares of AllMusic agrees that the album is lacking in Clark's guitar acrobatics
• The Guardian's Maddy Costa praised the vocals, contrasting them from subtle and seductive to soft and whispy
• The Independent's Andy Gill and Simmy Richman consider the brass instrumentation the album's greatest strength; Richman called it a skewed and funky instant classic
• Drowned in Sound's Robert Leedham praised the jaunty trombones and trumpet-led fanfare but found the alternating vocals weak and Byrne-centric

Records

• Released in 2012 with a silver certification from the Independent Music Companies Association, which indicated sales of at least 20,000 copies throughout Europe
• The album was Byrne's first solo effort to reach the Billboard Top 40, peaking at No. 23
• The record was later surpassed by Byrne's 2018 album American Utopia, which debuted at No. 3

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The duo first met at a 2009 Radio City Music Hall benefit concert for Dark Was the Night; the actual collaboration started at a second meeting at the Housing Works thrift shop.
• The project was first planned as a single live performance, and Clark's suggestion to add brass is what turned it into an album.
• Clark had just made Actor, which leaned on woodwinds and strings, so brass was a sound she had not explored before.
• Brass Tactics, a promotional EP released on 28 May 2013, contained one new song, remixes from the album, and live recordings from the tour.
• Special thanks in the credits go to Gabe Bartalos for molds made from the cover shoot prosthetics.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

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