Album: David Byrne

In which the Mekon-brained musical polymath and former Talking Head, having scoured the globe for new and intriguing sounds, turns his attention to... opera! Well, for a couple of tracks at least: a solo of Verdi's "Un di Felice, Eterea", and a duet with Rufus Wainwright of Bizet's "Au Fond du Temple Saint", which effects a sort of reverse bathos, coming as it does after a cover of Lambchop's "The Man Who Loved Beer". I've no idea how Byrne's versions compare with proper opera singers', but they're not without charm, albeit at the top end of his range. Good tunes, too. Elsewhere, it's the usual pan-ethnic musical stew, with marimba and gamelan punctuating tracks such as "Glass, Concrete, Stone"; accordion lending a continental flavour to "Civilization"; and pedal steel and reverb guitar giving "Astronaut" a country & western feel. "I surf the net and watch TV/ There's peace in the Middle East/ Feel like I'm an astronaut," sings Byrne, in a tone of ingenuous naivety that perhaps represents America's arm's-length attitude towards the rest of the world. There's more explicit criticism of the Bush administration in "Empire", in which ominous horns surround a sardonic account of how "Tears fill our eyes/ In democratic fever/ For national defence". All in all, an intriguing set of typically thought-provoking diversions.