Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio has a side project going during the band's planned year-long hiatus. Two, actually. In addition to the joke-rap mixtape he's been working on with
Aziz Ansari, Sitek is putting together a solo album under the name
Maximum Balloon, to be released in August. The first single, "Tiger," is listenable now on the website and buyable tomorrow through iTunes.
The single features Aku from
Dragons of Zynth, a perfect fit for the track, and the album promises several more guest vocalists whose names are as of yet undisclosed. "Tiger" definitely holds some ties to
TV on the Radio &mdash you might recognize something familiar in the driven electro beat, and though the voice is different the way it's used remains the same, alternating between taking center stage and playing second fiddle to the instrumental loops. There's some fancy footwork going on in the single, but Sitek is under serious pressure to innovate ever since NME named him #1 on their "Future 50" list in 2008 and I don't know how funky people are expecting him to get. "Tiger" is auspicious foreshadowing for a catchy and quirky album, though perhaps not the Jetsons of modern music.-
selden paterson
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Maximum Balloon on Myspace