Twice in a Lifetime: Byrne, Eno Reunite for New Disc

One fine day' — there's a funny story about that," Brian Eno says with a smile, referring to one of the 11 songs on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, the new, gleaming art-pop album the British producer and occasional solo artist has made with his friend, ex-Talking Heads singer-guitarist David Byrne.

Sitting at a table across from Byrne in the latter's Lower Manhattan office, Eno says that at a point early in the record's extended birth, he played a piece of instrumental music in his London studio for Coldplay's Chris Martin: "Chris said, 'Wow, I'd love to work on that.' I'd given it to David a few months before and hadn't heard anything back. So I gave it to Chris."

Six months later, Martin excitedly told Eno he had written "the most amazing song" for that track. Ironically, that day, Byrne finally e-mailed Eno an MP3 of "One Fine Day," Byrne's space-gospel spin — with a sunny vocal and wry, hopeful lyrics — on Eno's spongy electronics. When Martin heard it, he surrendered gracefully. "He said, 'I can't do better than that,' " Eno recalls, chuckling. "Incredible timing."

"I was terrified of starting," Byrne confesses with his chirping laugh, explaining why it took him so long to get a grip on Eno's music. "He could have said, 'No, I hate this.' '' They grin at each other over the table. "That was our agreement," Byrne adds. "If we both liked it, we would continue. If one of us didn't, there's no reason to pursue this."

With Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, Byrne, 56, and Eno, 60, have resumed a partnership that began 30 years ago, when Eno — a former member of Roxy Music who collaborated in the mid-Seventies with David Bowie, Robert Fripp and John Cale, among others — produced the first of three Talking Heads albums: 1978's More Songs About Buildings and Food, followed by 1979's Fear of Music and the 1980 future-funk classic, Remain in Light. Eno and Byrne also recorded a pioneering collage of sampling and Third World music, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a Top 50 hit after its release in 1981.