Arcade Fire ft. David Byrne: Speaking in Tongues

It's nearly been a whole year since Arcade Fire's last LP, The Suburbs, was released, so in celebration of this momentous occasion Merge records are releasing a deluxe edition with a whopping two whole extra tracks. I say this with a certain amount of venom and frustration because, in my mind at least, 'deluxe editions' are an irritating scourge on the musical firmament. These kinds of releases are clearly aimed at fans of the band in question, and that's just the trouble: any real fan has already bought the album, so why should they feel compelled to buy it all over again?

Much like the ubiquitous 'director's cut' in the field of film, almost as soon as a record has found its place in the world we're bombarded with alternate versions, extra tracks and exclusive content. But whereas directors of motion pictures can fall back on auteur theory to defend their actions (their work is their own personal vision which has been stymied and compromised by commercial forces, so it's their duty to release the 'pure' version), quite what record labels hope to achieve by this still eludes me. It appears, at face value, to be a canny attempt to shift more copies of a record that's started to flag sales-wise, but surely the only people who can be expected to shell out for the little extra content that's on offer are the genuine fans. It's these very same fans who bought the original record as soon as they could, and it's these fans who surely ought to be at the heart of the label's sales strategy for any future releases, so why on earth do labels insist on treating them like dirt?

All that these 'deluxe editions' achieve is a growth of ill will toward the bands. A fan with a limited budget who wants to own the whole package will surely wait for the inevitable re-release, and as such will feel marginalised by the label; more casual listeners appear to be getting priority, and can claim ownership of a band's music before the band's die-hard fans. And this practice surely hurts the record's opening sales, too; fans simply won't buy the record's original version or will download a pirated copy just so they can hear the music at the same time as everyone else.

Of course, it doesn't really work like this. Music fans are chumps - I should know, I'm one of them - and these 'deluxe' re-releases clearly work, otherwise labels wouldn't bother with them. And it doesn't do the labels or bands concerned any harm, either. Merge are a well respected little indie with a history of treating their audience with respect, and Arcade Fire fans seem to be nothing if not loyal. So what are they offering us this time? Well, there's an '80 page booklet', the Spike Jonze video, Scenes From The Suburbs (which is the 15min extended cut of the highly excellent video for the lead single, The Suburbs) and an extended version of the track Wasted Hours. _But more importantly that that, there's the two aforementioned 'new' tracks. Predictably, these are off-cuts from the original _Suburbs sessions, and the first of the two, a little ditty called Culture War, sounds exactly like that: it's an okay-ish song, but is by very definition not quite as good as the rest of the album. What's grabbed my attention, however, is the track Speaking in Tongues, which is billed as 'featuring David Byrne'.

Now I can't speak with any authority on the compositional process behind this track - who know's, maybe Byrne wrote the whole thing? - but judging by his participation on the performance itself, it sounds like all they did was poke him with a stick towards the end, because as far as I can hear, his only contribution to proceedings is a few off-mic yelps and wails in after the three minute mark, along with mind-numbing repetition of the final refrain. What had piqued my interest in this release was the promise of another collaboration of the same calibre as Byrne's appearance alongside the Dirty Projectors on the* Dark Was the Night* compilation a couple of years ago.

The track in question, Knotty Pine, was a stirling example of everything a good collaboration could be. Lured into the song by my familiarity with Byrne's work, the track served as an excellent showcase for the Dirty Projector's sound that prompted me to explore their back catalogue with great enthusiasm. And on top of all that, it sounded as if both the band and Byrne had an equal stake in the songs composition (Byrne did the lyrics and the band did the music, I'm told). In the case of Speaking in Tongues, however, the motives are less clear. It could be argued that Arcade Fire now occupy a bigger slot in the collective cultural consciousness than Byrne does, so idea of adding an elder statesman's authority to an up and coming band isn't all that relevant any more, and on artistically it doesn't feel justified either; this is a 'throw track', not worthy of a release in it's own right. If it were a collaboration motivated by artistic desires, then surely they'd be making much more of a fuss over it.

Unfortunately the track itself simply doesn't deliver. It starts off promisingly enough, with the Fire's typical flair for grandiose, post-apocalyptic chord progressions and textures in full force, but it never really moves on from this. By the one minute mark we've pretty much heard all the song has to offer, and it just isn't enough to sustain a listener's attention or interest for a whole song. If not an out-and-out waste of talent, it feels more like talent that hasn't quite reached it's full potential. With a lot more hard work and application they could craft a great song from these bare bones, but as it stands at the moment it should have been left where it belongs; on the cutting room floor.

The Dirty Projectors & David Byrne - Knotty Pine [audio //www.bearfacedrecords.com/EbMBlog_mp3s/Misc/DirtyProjectors_KnottyPine.mp3]

Arcade Fire - Speaking in Tongues (ft. David Byrne)

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Arcade Fire - Culture War

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