David Byrne Presents Found Sound Installation

Did you know London has a tempo of 122.86 beats per minute? So says musician David Byrne, of Talking Heads and solo career fame. Byrne’s new sound installation , titled “Get It Away,” builds a song around sampled sounds recorded in the city.

“It turned out that most of the sounds seemed to converge around a common rhythm,” Byrne says, “I let the sounds dictate the groove, the tempo, and then I simply played along.”

The installation is part of Queen Elizabeth Hall’s “A Room for London” residency project. The “room” in the name is a one-bedroom installation on the roof of Queen Elizabeth Hall, which hosts artists and displays art and music. Byrne resided there for three days while crating “Get It Away.”

Hear "Get It Away"