Baio: A Vampire Goes Dancing

Soundcheck | Sep 24, 2015

Chris Baio's day job is playing bass for one of the biggest names in contemporary pop music, Vampire Weekend. But today he releases his first solo album, The Names, under the moniker Baio, and the record reveals a preoccupation with the glitchier sounds of 2015 dance music. Which isn't to say it's all beats and blips: songs like "Sister of Pearl" and "Endless Rhythm" emerge as fully-formed pop tunes with Baio crooning like Bryan Ferry over rollicking key and drum patterns. Baio was DJ'ing on Columbia University's radio station well before his Vampire Weekend days, but the audiences (both for dance music in general, and for the musician himself in particular) have grown considerably in the intervening years. He'll bring his eclectic pop ear to a stripped-down set in the Soundcheck studio.

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