In 2023, as his triumphant American Utopia era came to a close after morphing from an album and tour into an acclaimed Broadway show and then a Spike Lee-directed HBO film, David Byrne began jotting down the occasional groove, chord or melody. It had been a minute.

During the tumultuous three prior years, “I did a LOT of cooking (Mexican and Indian mostly) and a LOT of drawing,” says Byrne, who also started compiling lyric ideas and phrases for possible songs. “I’ve found that when the time comes, it’s easier to start if there’s a little stockpile – and before too long there was. Very rudimentary songs began to emerge, with just me on acoustic guitar singing over a programmed loop or beat.”

And with the world, and the in-progress American Utopia Broadway run, on pause, he, like much of humanity, took the opportunity to ask, “Do I like what I’m doing? Why am I writing songs, or working this job, or whatever? Does any of it matter?”

Byrne’s attempts to answer those weighty questions can be found on Who Is The Sky?, a first-time collaboration between himself, Grammy-winning producer Kid Harpoon aka Tom Hull (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus) and New York-based chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra, and featuring guest appearances by Paramore’s Hayley Williams, longtime collaborator St. Vincent (“she lives just around the corner from the studio,” Byrne says) and The Smile drummer Tom Skinner.

The album builds upon the optimistic themes laid out by American Utopia and its supporting tour, and more specifically spelled out by the Grammy-winning Broadway show and subsequent movie. With this offering, Byrne continues his lifelong exploration of human connection and the potential for societal unity against the chaotic backdrop of the world. Who Is the Sky? is particularly cinematic, humorous and joyful, but often with a lesson baked in – that love is unexplainable, that enlightenment means very different things to different people and that it’s always a good idea to moisturize, whether you wake up the next morning with skin like a baby or not. Most importantly, the songs evince Byrne’s gift for riding the razor’s edge of avant-garde and accessible pop.

Byrne was inspired to enlist Ghost Train Orchestra after hearing their 2023 tribute album to the blind New York composer and street poet Moondog, and later that year jumped on stage with the group during a Brooklyn performance. Enticed by the 15-member Ghost Train’s varied instrumental lineup – which includes drums, percussion, guitar and bass along with strings, winds and brass – he thought to himself, “what if that’s what these new songs of mine sounded like?” Byrne asked if they’d want to serve as his band for the Who Is The Sky? sessions, and they quickly agreed.

“David and I met through a mutual friend, Joan Wasser, who plays a pivotal guest role in our Moondog project,” says Ghost Train Orchestra leader Brian Carpenter. “When she told me he was interested in the band, I was thrilled, being a fan of his going back decades all the way up to seeing American Utopia with my son. David sent me some demos and asked us to put together some orchestral ideas. Curtis Hasselbring and I quickly wrote a couple rough draft arrangements of his songs for Ghost Train, including ‘My Apartment is My Friend,’ which was the first song we rehearsed at our tiny rehearsal space in Chinatown. To hear him singing with us for the first time on that song was just incredible.”

Via an introduction at a party by a friend, Kid Harpoon came into the picture next. “Sometimes things do happen at parties,” Byrne notes. “I knew this could all get complicated and I also wanted to be sure the recordings sounded as good as possible. An outside set of ears can be super helpful. A few artists I knew had worked with Kid Harpoon, and I thought those records sounded really good.” Byrne sent Harpoon some demos, and after a discussion at the former’s Santa Monica hotel, he jumped aboard too.

There are “more story songs than usual” on Who Is the Sky?, according to Byrne. These “mini-narratives based on personal experience” include “She Explains Things to Me” (sample lyric: “how come it’s all so obvious to her?”), “A Door Called No” (which magically opens after Byrne receives a kiss), “My Apartment Is My Friend” (“you’ve seen me at my very worst / but we always get along,” he sings) and “I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party” (at which the onetime spiritual guru is more interested in the unhealthy deserts than deification).

Marked by the inviting vocal interplay between Byrne and Paramore’s Williams, the jaunty “What Is the Reason for It?” aims to codify love in a way logic can rarely accomplish (“does it do something useful? / nobody understands it”), while “The Avant Garde” wrestles with the merits of art for art’s sake (“it’s ahead of the curve / it’s deceptively weighty, profound, absurd / it’s whatever fits” – a meta observation if ever there was one from one of the most iconoclastic artists to emerge from the New York rock underground.

“I suspected that intimate orchestral arrangements would bring out the emotion I sense is there in these songs,” says Byrne, who is planning to tour Who Is The Sky? later this year. “It’s something that folks don’t always hear in my work, but this time for sure I thought it was there. At the same time, I also see myself as someone who aspires to be accessible. I imagined that Kid Harpoon would help with that, as well as being a set of trusted ears, since there was a lot going on. People think of producers as people who mainly make a record sound good, and Kid Harpoon did that, but he was also aware of how important the storytelling is.”

“I’ve always heard him through the lens of a story, like how ‘Moisturizing Thing’ is a story,” Kid Harpoon says. “It took me a second to realize, oh yeah, these songs are personal, but with David’s unique perspective on life in general. Walking around New York listening to the demo of ‘Everybody Laughs’ was so joyous, because it made me feel like we’re all the same – we all laugh, cry and sing. The thing about David that resonates with a lot of people is that he’s in on the joke. He gets the absurdity of it all, and all of these personal observations are his perspective on it.”

When it came time to craft Ghost Train’s contributions, Carpenter assigned each arrangement to a different member, adding another layer of variety and experimentalism to Who Is The Sky? In a thoroughly modern twist, Byrne and Kid Harpoon listened to the works-in-progress and offered their notes (“what if you shifted that part to verse two,” “maybe try saving that wonderful brass line until later,” “maybe repeat that line – it’s really good”) via Zoom. “David is just an endless stream of great ideas and then Tom added this wonderful sensibility around hooks and narrative,” Carpenter says. “It was a very unique, extraordinary experience.”

An admitted “stickler when it comes to grooves,” Byrne welcomed late-in-the-game contributions from Skinner and Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, with whom he’s recorded and toured for more than 30 years. Mixed by Mark “Spike” Stent and mastered by Emily Lazar, the finished product is about both hiding and revealing, or as Byrne puts it, “a chance to be the mythical creature we all harbor inside. A chance to step into another reality. A chance to transcend and escape from the prison of our ‘selves.’” These concepts are heavily incorporated in the Who Is The Sky? album package, which was designed by Shira Inbar and finds Byrne nearly obscured by radiating, colored patterns and psychedelic, spiky outfits designed by Belgian artist Tom Van Der Borght.

“He’s a very singular brain, and although he goes somewhere completely different from record to record, it all still feels very communal,” offers Kid Harpoon. “Everyone’s involved, but he’s the head of the party. This music felt like that to me.” Throughout, the songs are packed with excitable rhythms and subtle instrumental flourishes, from the sly guitar line of “When We Are Singing” (listen carefully for Byrne’s smile-inducing, wordless vocalizations at the end) to the bum-da-bum-da-bum beat and acoustic guitar stabs of “Don’t Be Like That” and the swaying, marimba-and-theremin-flecked  “I’m an Outsider.”

“At my age, at least for me, there’s a ‘don’t give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in,” Byrne says. “I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I’m doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure. There’s always a bit of, ‘how do I work this?’ I’ve found that not every collaboration works, but often when they do, it’s because I’m able to clearly impart what it is I’m trying to do. They hopefully get that, and as a result, we’re now joined together heading to the same unknown place.”