Sounding more like a missing Talking Heads session than anything remotely like David Byrne's 1990s-era work, The Catherine Wheel is at root a display of funky, off-time rhythms and vamps with Byrne involved at every level.... more » The music was composed and produced to accompany a Twyla Tharp-choreographed dance event, and for program music it's brilliant enough to stand alone. The 73 minutes are almost seamless, weaving ambient soundscapes with loopy percussion-backed bass runs with guitar strumming across the top. Byrne shows his command of dramatic scoring here, spreading his wings across a huge range of styles and doing so in a way that sounds both like his old band and entirely different from them. You can hear in The Catherine Wheel where Byrne was heading (i.e., heavily rhythmic music) years before the Heads were disbanded and he ventured into life as a Brazilian- and Latin-music impresario. It's the sound of a young genius having free reign, and as such it's exceptional. --Andrew Bartlett« less
Sounding more like a missing Talking Heads session than anything remotely like David Byrne's 1990s-era work, The Catherine Wheel is at root a display of funky, off-time rhythms and vamps with Byrne involved at every level. The music was composed and produced to accompany a Twyla Tharp-choreographed dance event, and for program music it's brilliant enough to stand alone. The 73 minutes are almost seamless, weaving ambient soundscapes with loopy percussion-backed bass runs with guitar strumming across the top. Byrne shows his command of dramatic scoring here, spreading his wings across a huge range of styles and doing so in a way that sounds both like his old band and entirely different from them. You can hear in The Catherine Wheel where Byrne was heading (i.e., heavily rhythmic music) years before the Heads were disbanded and he ventured into life as a Brazilian- and Latin-music impresario. It's the sound of a young genius having free reign, and as such it's exceptional. --Andrew Bartlett
"Like I have, I am sure that many Heads fans have wondered what happened between Stop Making Sense and Little Creatures. The leap seemed huge, bridging the gap from rythem based rock to the new era synth-pop sound of later Heads work. Both sounds work just fine for me, and I still consider Little Creatures to be among the best albums of the last 20 years.While pre-dating both of the aformentioned ablums chronologically, Byrne's solo soundtrack work on "The Catherine Wheel" sounds very much like the foundational work for Little Creatures. It's as if Byrne knew, 5 years out, where he wanted to take the Heads - he just had to bring the rest of the band up to speed.This is a fun album, lots of little fills and long, worldless background sutff - all great for a long drive.So, if you're a Heads fan that has been looking for that ellusive missing link - I think this is it."
A funky masterpiece that floats.
Jerome Kelly | Fullerton, CA USA | 07/09/1998
(5 out of 5 stars)
""The Catherine Wheel" will always be one of my favorite albums. Back in the mid 80's, when my college friend and I needed to decide on some good stereo music late at night, we'd look at each other, say "It!", and play "The Catherine Wheel." This collection of Talking-Heads-ish pieces will characterize your internal and external environment in the period during which you familiarize yourself with it. Hearing it years later will evoke many of the feelings and mental images that you experienced while listening to it. Usually, it takes at least whole year's worth of pop radio to achive this effect in me, but David Byrne did it in one CD. I've secretly been wishing that David Byrne would one day return temporarily to this style of his music: layered acoustic percussion and rhythm elements, freaky electric, not necessarily electronic, sounds and samples, and sparse melodies held together by Byrne's yelling-singing voice."
ONE OF THE BEST EVER, but where is the COMPLETE score on CD?
G. Mitchell | Los Angeles, CA United States | 11/28/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I bought this cassette back in junior high school when I was truly obsessed with TALKING HEADS - they had just made the brave leap forward with the ENO-helmed REMAIN IN LIGHT, which remains in my TOP 10 of all time albums - but THIS original score for Twyla Tharp's dance production is in many ways even more mind-blowing, ground-breaking, and seminal - here Byrne is given free reign to do his thang and explore the very limits of music, percussion, vocals, and song structure, or lack thereof...truly truly SPELL-BINDING stuff! But here's the rub: my original long OOP cassette version that WB released (BLUE cover, not RED) contains the COMPLETE score, with many tracks/sections NOT found on the sadly abbreviated CD - I guess they couldn't fit all of its BRILLIANCE on one CD, so they chose to edit - now that it's legendary, why not re-issue an expanded, double-CD with the entire score for posterity?! And why not include some of the 12" MIXES of BIG BUSINESS, etc released on 12" only singles at the time?! Trust me, once you buy this and start listening, you will come back to it over & over again - this is over two decades and I still come back to it every few months - WAY AHEAD OF ITS TIME, NEVER GROWS OLD! Sadly, Byrne would never top this...I find all of this later TALKING HEADS (post-Speaking In Tongues) and solo projects dry, brittle, flat, and dull - that tired "world music" white man's burden trap. Oh well. At least we have THIS to cherish."
The Catherine Wheel: The Complete Broadway Byrne
MIA | USA | 10/21/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The Catherine Wheel is simply a masterpiece of modern electronic music. Here we find David Byrne, unfettered by the limitations of the pop song format that constrained his work with Talking Heads, stretching his wings as a modern composer. The Catherine Wheel combines the best lessons of Byrne's synth-funk and found-vocal Eno collaborations ("The Red House") with quirky and soaring sound scapes ("Light Bath," "Dinosaur"), verbal ellipses and his trademark (and under appreciated!) rhythmic-lead guitar work. There is no wasted music on this one: every track has something wonderful to offer. Because The Catherine Wheel was written as a dance score, a number of tracks lack the formal structures of pop songs. But these are not gratuitous noodlings nor mere sketches of songs that might have been. Rather, each piece has an integrity and musical interest to it. And, on a larger scale, the layers of rhythm and instrumental texture throughout draw the ear and the mind into a complete and coherent musical vision. The Catherine Wheel reveals one of America's great musical minds in full flower."
Pass the Butter
P. McGrath | Orlando, FL United States | 06/24/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Prepare for a gigantic, 9 course (or so) feast for the soul. There is so much here. Beginning and ending with "Light Bath", Byrne seems to want to take the listener on a journey into, through, and then out of, his soul. Nothing is held back, lyrically or musically. From the eerie to the sublime to the transcendant, this CD succeeds on every level. And the musicianship! Understated, intense guitar work ("Big Blue Plymouth"), awe inspiring sonic treatments throughout (esp. "His Wife Refused", "Eggs in a Briar Patch" & "Big Business"), and tremendous layered rhythm(s) (e.g. "Ade" ). Talking Heads fans: PAY HEED! If you were not aware of this one, joy unto you! Anyone else with a thimblefull of musical imagination will find a treasure trove of musical delights here. Somebody (please) point me in the direction of something comparable on the contemporary music scene."