David Byrne & St. Vincent To Headline MONA FOMA 2013

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and St. Vincent (real name Annie Clark) officially release their collaborative album, Love This Giant today, one of the year’s most anticipated releases for the art-pop loving set, following a few killer tastes of the album (including the ace video for horn-parping funk-out ‘Who’).

Today, along with the release of the album comes the news that Australian audiences will be some of the first to experience Love This Giant live, with news that David Byrne and female partner-in-crime Annie Clark will be headlining next year’s MONA FOMA festival in Tasmania.

The Mercury confirms that the 60-year-old performer will be topping the bill for Hobart’s arts and music festival in January 2013. Colloquially known as MOFO, the annual festival is billed as Tasmania’s largest contemporary music festival – now in it’s fifth year – is curated by Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie, who told the paper he’s thrilled to have landed Byrne for the headlining slot.

“I think he’s the perfect artist for MOFO,” said Ritchie, “because he crosses all these different fields of endeavour while always maintaining a freshness to his work.” The MOFO curator has been trying to secure Byrne for the slot since 2009, when Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds topped the lineup.

The release of Love This Giant, putting Byrne back in the live circuit, created the perfect opportunity for Ritchie to secure a vist from Byrne, with St. Vincent in tow, with the pair being the only officially announced acts for the lineup thus far.

Last year’s program included the likes of PJ Harvey, The Dresden Dolls, Girl Talk and Sigur Ros’ string quartet-turned-band Amiina.