Baio

Chris Baio, the New York native long recognized as the bass player in chart-topping indie rock outfit Vampire Weekend, records under the solo alias that matches his familiar nickname. His first album under that name, the 2015 release The Names, presented stylish synth pop fronted by deep, detached vocals. On his third solo effort, 2021's Dead Hand Control, track lengths shifted dramatically from one cut to the next, occasionally recalling the extended 12" dance mixes that flourished during the 1980s.

An early passion for music led the future Columbia University student to collect records and attend live shows before he reached double digits. While still enrolled at the school, he advanced to music director of the campus station WBAR; in 2006 he joined Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, and Chris Tomson—all likewise completing their studies at Columbia—to launch Vampire Weekend.

The group took its name from a short film Koenig had produced as a freshman. Initial performances occurred at the university's literary societies and at private parties, after which word of their Afro-pop-infused, literate indie rock sound and lyrics began to circulate; "Oxford Comma" numbered among the earliest compositions to surface. Momentum built through a series of self-released EPs captured in settings that ranged from dorm rooms to a family barn. By the close of 2007 the quartet had secured a deal with XL Records. Their first output for the label, the Mansard Roof EP, preceded the self-titled full-length that arrived in early 2008. That debut entered the Top 20 on both the U.S. and U.K. album charts and ranked among the year's most successful indie releases. Extensive touring occupied the band for roughly two years, yet they still managed to record Contra, which surfaced in early 2010. Late in 2011 the members reconvened at Ariel Rechtshaid's home studio to begin work on a third album, Modern Vampires of the City, issued in May 2013.

One month after its release Baio moved to London, where ideas for a solo project began to take concrete shape. The resulting set of grooving synth pop, issued as The Names on Glassnote in September 2015, marked his first appearance under the Baio moniker. His second album drew much of its impetus from the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum and the United States presidential election, both of which occurred in 2016, together with the frequent international travel that marked the period; he arrived back in London on the very day of the American vote. That anxiety-driven collection, Man of the World, followed in June 2017, again via Glassnote.

Vampire Weekend returned to the studio as a unit and delivered its fourth album, Father of the Bride, in 2019; the set became the band's third consecutive release to top the Billboard 200. Baio resurfaced with his own third long-player, the club-friendly Dead Hand Control, in early 2021. Titled after an automated Soviet missile system, the record sustained the exploration of anxious themes.