BAIO RELEASES NEW FULL-LENGTH ALBUM “DEAD HAND CONTROL”
Synth-pop master BAIO releases his third new full-length album “Dead Hand Control,” out today, January 29th 2021, via Glassnote Records. Littered with rich vocals and carefully crafted layers, BAIO continues to show off his musical repertoire.
LISTEN TO "DEAD HAND CONTROL" HERE
Recorded over 18 months at Damon Albarn’s 13 Studios in London, as well as BAIO’s personal C+C Music Factory (founded with VW bandmate Chris Tomson in Los Angeles), Dead Hand Control takes its name from a rumored Soviet missile system designed to obliterate America (“Dead Hand”), and a legal strategy for attempting to control the beneficiaries of your will after you die (“Dead Hand Control”).
BAIO, who is also the bassist for the Grammy-Award winning band Vampire Weekend, explains, “I was looking at the past five years of American life and obsessing about topics like death, wills and nuclear war,” he says, of the album's origins. “But at its heart, it’s about how the only thing you can control is the way you treat the people in your life.”
This is not an album about annihilation. Instead, BAIO zigzags joyfully between techno, art rock and a dash of funk, exploring what it means to care for one another in a society in upheaval.
BAIO wrote all the songs on the album with the exception of “O.M.W.”, the nearly 10-minute long closing ballad written in collaboration with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. The album features a small cast of eclectic collaborators, including BAIO’s long time guitarist George Hume, drummer and State Department Jazz Ambassador Robby Sinclair, Future Classic’s Buzzy Lee, and VW touring member Greta Morgan, on backing vocals. The album was made with BAIO’s longtime engineer John Foyle and mixed by Lars Stalfors (St. Vincent, Still Woozy).
While it arrives at a tenuous moment on the national stage, the album marks a banner year in BAIO’s career, which saw a Grammy win for Best Alternative Album for Vampire Weekend, the release of an EP from C.Y.M., BAIO’s experimental Krautrock project with British producer and DJ Mike Greene (a.k.a. Fort Romeau), and the launch of the popular Ringer podcast The Road Taken (which teams up BAIO and Tomson interviewing touring musicians about life on the road).
BAIO is the solo project of Chris Baio, who has been the bassist in American rock band Vampire Weekend since 2006. The band has seen great success receiving 2 GRAMMY awards and was the first act to have three No. 1 albums debut on the Billboard Charts.
Having embarked on his solo journey in early 2012, with his first EP release “Sunburn,” BAIO was infused with inspiration from electronic and dance music, displaying Chris’ DJ talents. Since then, he has released two studio albums, “The Names” in 2015 and “Man of The World” in 2017. Both albums received widespread praise for their skillful production and multifaceted musical depth.
In 2020, BAIO released “Endlessly Me, Endlessly” and “What Do You Say When I’m Not There,” also to be featured on the upcoming studio album. The tracks parallel each other in a sense - exploring a sort of duality of the enduring power of connection that many of us desire, and the struggles of not knowing how others truly feel. BAIO masterfully fuels both tracks with funky beats infused with electronic elements, perfectly complementing the heartfelt, storytelling qualities embedded within the lyrics.
“Dead Hand Control” is available now on all streaming services.
