FUSE TV - David Byrne & St. Vincent Unveil Collabo Details, New Song

Thanks for clearing that up, Annie and David! Following rumors about their much-anticipated collaborative album, St. Vincent's Annie Clark and ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne have announced complete details for Love This Giant, out September 11 via 4AD/Todo Mundo. Sweet! And there's a song, too! Download it right here.

The project, first envisioned by the duo as a collaborative benefit gig at Housing Works in New York City (an event, NPR notes, that still hasn't happened), finds the pair working with a brass band "rather than the typical rock ensemble." They recruited Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas and the soul revivalists The Dap-Kings, as well as producer John Congleton (Modest Mouse, Explosions in the Sky).

In a statement, Byrne explained the songwriting process for Love This Giant:

"The writing was truly collaborative: sometimes Annie would send me some synthesized versions of brass or guitar riffs and I would arrange them a bit and write a tune and words over them; other times this process would be reversed and I would send some musical ideas to Annie for her to write over. This material would get passed back and forth — each of us adding and elaborating on it.

He added, "I found that writing words to this brass-centric sound meant I had to re-think my lyrical approach. Brass has many associations — marching bands, Italian banda, New Orleans bands, classical chorales, R&B and funk. In general it's not a subtle sound, so the words had to respond to that. We worked with a group of great arrangers, usually passing them midi versions of the parts that we had created on computers. They did their arrangements and often sent us synthesized versions to hear before the real players came in. The process involved a number of steps, so it took a while. On some songs I re-wrote the words about three times before I hit a direction I felt worked!"

There you have it. Download the super funky "Who" at the album's website, then tell us what you think in the comments.