He just shared the singles “Endless Me, Endlessly” and “What Do You Say When I’m Not There?” The tracks are also accompanied by videos including the one for “Endless Me, Endlessly” which features the artist singing in reverse.
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 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.”
“Endless Me, Endlessly” is a proclamation of pure selflessness. Baio adds, “‘Endless Me, Endlessly’ is a simple song about being there in every possible capacity for someone else. Through hard times just as much as good times. In a way, it’s a bit of a fantasy - a single person cannot be everything to someone else. Lately, though, I have found fantasy to be a thing of comfort.” That theme is echoed in the video for the track where he is recorded performing celebratory acts backwards.
Conversely, he describes that, “What Do You Say When I’m Not There?” is “the polar opposite emotionally. It’s an ode to insecurity and the fact that you can never truly know what is going on in someone else’s mind. With this song I tried to strike a pointed contrast between melancholy lyrics and an upbeat, sunny energy.”
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).
Tracklisting:
Dead Hand Control
Endless Me, Endlessly
What Do You Say When I’m Not There?
Dead Hand
Take It From Me
Caisse Noire
Never Never Never
O.M.W.
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