David Byrne may be a bona fide sexagenarian these days, but age is seemingly no obstacle to his ability to compose such pulsating stuff as Everybody’s Coming to My House, nor to keeping his finger on the figurative pulse: the likes of Perfume Genius and tUnE-yArDs are due to support the onetime Talking Head on certain dates of his US tour, while his forthcoming American Utopia full-length was produced, in parts and places, by XL Recordings’ in-house wunderkind Rodaidh McDonald and Daniel Lopatin. It’s the latter – probably best known as Oneohtrix Point Never – who’s lent a hand or two to This Is That, and his prints are all over its meditative opening moments: brimming with Ryōanji-worthy Zen, it’s classic Lopatin and unquestionably classy. Then, “when the melody ends, and the rhythm kicks in,” Byrne’s yearning croon inaugurates a disconcertingly inert chorus, but it’s once said “rhythm” drops out again that this one really comes into its own. “This is when/ This is now/ This is that/ This is how” goes its mantric refrain in a moment of intense reflection during which, throughout a 36-second repose, time just seems to… stop. Which, irrespective of age, is a feat very few artists are capable of achieving. Special, profound, and so on and so forth, it now streams below…

American Utopia is available from March 9^th via Todomundo / Nonesuch Records, while David Byrne plays the Eventim Apollo on Tuesday, 19^th and Wednesday, 20^th June.