David Byrne 3: Rei Momo

Nobody said anything, but David Byrne seemed quite busy with his own musical projects not involving Talking Heads. His new Luaka Bop imprint began a long-running series of compilations, celebrating the music of Brazil and Cuba, and eventually Asia and Africa. When he released his own album, each of the tracks on Rei Momo was helpfully denoted as to what style of music it was in, from samba and cumbia to merengue and plenty others we hadn’t hear of before.

It’s an upbeat album, and the lyrics seem to be on the positive side; in fact, the first sentence we hear is “Now and then I get horny.” Each track is impeccably arranged, with contributions from such luminaries as Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colón, and Kirsty MacColl, though his distinctive voice makes it all very clear just who’s singing. Yet it’s easy to lose interest in listening too closely, which is fine for dinner music. A little goes a long way, but the album’s over an hour long. Some of the tracks seem generic, such as “Make Believe Mambo”, and the “Wild Thing” interjections in “Loco De Amor”. Sometimes it feels kinda cartoony, as with the chorus of crickets and bird calls that make up the backing track of “I Know Sometimes A Man Is Wrong”. Despite their titles, “Dirty Old Town” and “The Dream Police” are not covers, and that’s probably a good thing.

Rei Momo is a bold experiment, for sure, and if it helped expose some of those lesser-known musicians from around the word, all the better for it. Undeniably toe-tapping, if you like that sort of thing.

David Byrne Rei Momo (1989)—3