David Byrne Expands Who Is The Sky? With Four Bonus Tracks

David Byrne has spent the past year treating the album format as something more pliable than a fixed sequence of songs. The deluxe edition of Who Is The Sky?, his first record in seven years and his debut for Matador, now adds four tracks that complicate the original’s shape without pretending it was incomplete.

The most interesting addition is “What Is The Reason For It?,” which originally appeared as a duet with Hayley Williams. Here the song returns with Natalia Lafourcade, who co-wrote it, backed by the Mexican Institute of Sound. Two other pieces — “My Madness” and “What And Where” — come from the original sessions with producer Kid Harpoon and were cut only to vary the album’s pacing. Byrne is candid about that logic. In a press release, he frames the LP as a sonic document tied to a particular time and place, not a sacred object. The digital version, he notes, can accommodate what the physical format could not.

The fourth bonus track, “T Shirt,” has already functioned as a live staple since the album’s release, which fits Byrne’s recent unstoppable rhythm: touring behind an elaborate new show, covering Olivia Rodrigo, and writing a song assembled entirely from Elon Musk quotes. The deluxe Who Is The Sky? is out now digitally on Matador, with two U.S. dates remaining on the tour: September 17 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center and September 19 at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.