"PLAYING THE BUILDING" WITH DAVID BYRNE

David Byrne Playing the Building “Nice one”, says David Byrne. It’s hard to tell whether he’s addressing himself or the instrument. Certainly it’s not us. We are the assembled media, gathered in a clacking and beeping horseshoe to watch the former Talking Head explain his new installation, “Playing the Building”. The instrument is a dilapidated-looking pump organ that sits, spotlit, in the centre of London's Roundhouse, a newly polished industrial performance space. From this organ, participants are able to produce a range of different sounds from the columns, arches and pipes of this former engine shed. Byrne has turned the building itself into a giant instrument.

Byrne's emphatic appreciation has been provoked by the bizarre sound he's just produced. Where we might have expected crude honks, instead his press of keys creates an unearthly rumbling, like the engine of a melodic cruise ship, high behind us. This, he tells us in his twitchy Manhattan drawl, is a small motor buzzing against an iron pillar. Then we hear a reedy whistle, caused by pressured air blown through the building’s arterial pipework. Finally there is an erratic clunking, the product of miniature hammers on metal.

David Byrne Playing the Building Though a musical project, "Playing the Building" is visually extraordinary: the pipes and wires controlling the sounds pour into the organ’s back from all over the room, making it resemble nothing so much as a gigantic loom–a nerve centre intrinsically related to the architecture.

Yet despite the installation's apparent complexity, anyone can engage with it. As Byrne reminds us, “the piano lessons you took as a kid won’t be much use here...you won’t be able to play Bach”. This point is proven as journalists queue up to play, each hoping to produce something more interesting than the previous.

Byrne’s manner is nervously humorous. He seems terrified of appearing to overstate the work's meaning, yet is equally anxious about communicating its democratic and musical aspects. This confusing mix of concept and fun is reflected in the bemused, charmed faces of the installation's visitors, all of whom seem to ask: What is this? Can I play it?

When I returned some days later, I was struck by the connection forged between those in the room and the person who happens to be playing. For however long they are sat at the organ, they are in command of everyone's experience of the installation. Byrne has noticed different approaches: “some people try to shape the sound much more. You can hear them making patterns”.

David Byrne Playing the Building This is the third stop for “Playing the Building”, after Stockholm and New York. But it's difficult to argue when Byrne describes the Roundhouse as a “perfect” setting. Not only does its industrial architecture fit elegantly with the Victorian steampunk vibe of the piece, but as a concert venue it’s also personally resonant for Byrne. He describes an early Talking Heads gig he played here in 1976, accompanying the Ramones and the Stranglers–“my introduction to gobbing”, he says, and smiles at the memory. The venue has changed since then. It is cleaner now, more measured, less rough around the edges. Byrne has matured too, and his experimental move into different fields and forms seems like a natural evolution. There are things he wants to say, but on this occasion it is enough to let these old walls speak for themselves to the people wandering within them.