David Byrne announces Pittsburgh show

David Byrne, the innovative musician and founding singer of the Talking Heads, announced a new album and world tour Tuesday — with a stop in Pittsburgh.

His new album, “Who Is The Sky?”, will be released Sept. 5, and Byrne will perform at the Benedum Center on Sept. 16. It will be the tour’s second show.

This is Byrne’s first album since 2018’s successful project “American Utopia,” and his first return to the area since that year, when he performed May 13 at the Benedum.

Byrne’s decades-long career spans the Talking Heads, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-inducted band whose eight studio albums gained them massive commercial and critical success. They are also the subject of Jonathan Demme’s 1984 film “Stop Making Sense,” which is considered by many to be among the greatest concert movies ever made.

The Talking Heads were known for hit singles including “Burning Down the House,” “Psycho Killer,” “Once in a Lifetime” and “Take Me to the River” in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Last week, the band dropped a video to “Psycho Killer” starring actress Saoirse Ronan.

Since the Talking Heads’ dissolution in the early 1990s, Byrne has collaborated with anyone and everyone, doing work in film, on solo albums and in theater. “American Utopia,” which was an album, tour and even a Broadway show, was Grammy-nominated.

This new tour will include 13 musicians, singers and dancers, all of whom will be mobile throughout the show. Byrne has released a single and music video, “Everybody Laughs,” ahead of the new album.

Tickets for the Sept. 16 show at the Benedum go on sale Friday at whoisthesky.davidbyrne.com. Fans can sign up for the presale until 10 p.m. Thursday at laylo.com/davidbyrne.