As anyone with an active presence in the Lower East Side rock scene can tell you, David Byrne is pretty concerned with the state of the modern underground. So, it isn't too shocking that his feature on the state of the music biz on Wired's website last month should feature an inset cover of the Fiery Furnaces' "Ex-Guru." What's odd and compelling about it is how reverential the Talking Heads legend treats the song, even while making some pretty unmissable changes. For the song's first two verses, Byrne keeps the instrumentation completely intact, duplicating its organ sounds and not even mussing a hair of the Widow City stand-out's infectious beat. Though his vocal delivery is clearly informed by Eleanor Friedberger's deadpan, his worn-in croon makes for an even smoother chorus. Even the icon can't match the nimble way Eleanor navigates her brother's insanely dense lyric sheet (she's totally underrated on degree of difficulty alone). If you stopped your iPod after the second verse, it'd merely be a sweet stamp of approval.

After verse two, when the original steers into its booming "thunderstorm," Byrne chooses his own adventure. He picks Matt Friedberger's brain to extend the song's stasis through another two rounds, mimicking the clipped cadence and strangely matter-of-fact narrative thread that the siblings have started. The original "Ex-Guru" is a peppy vignette in the middle of a three-song arc. Byrne expands the short to feature length while keeping its tone exact. And really, that's a love letter of even greater substance. [Via I Guess I'm Floating]