Vampire Weekend bassist and one-time Stereogum correspondent Chris Baio will return in January with his latest solo album as Baio, Dead Hand Control. It’s the follow-up to 2017’s Man Of The World, though in between Baio debuted C.Y.M., his duo with Fort Romeau, and contributed to VW’s Father Of The Bride.

Explaining the new album, Baio says, “I was looking at the past five years of American life and obsessing about topics like death, wills and nuclear war. But at its heart, it’s about how the only thing you can control is the way you treat the people in your life.” The title refers to Dead Hand, a rumored Soviet missile system, and “dead hand control,” a legal strategy designed to control the beneficiaries of your will after you die. Baio recorded Dead Hand Control on and off over the course of 18 months at Damon Albarn’s 13 Studios in London and C+C Music Factory, the LA studio he founded with VW bandmate Chris Tomson. He wrote the 10-minute closing track “O.M.W.” with Ezra Koenig.

To introduce Dead Hand Control, Baio is giving us two singles today. The first, the effervescent ’80s pop track “Endless Me, Endlessly,” arrives with an era-appropriate video in which a seriously shaggy Baio sings the song backwards while performing celebratory acts against various tableaus. It’s one of the better music videos I’ve seen this year. He’s also sharing audio for “What Do You Say When I’m Not There?” That one’s jaunty and bass-driven, with a vocal that reminds me of a whole galaxy of British alt-rock crooners.

Check out both tracks below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Dead Hand Control”
02 “Endless Me, Endlessly”
03 “What Do You Say When I’m Not There?”
04 “Dead Hand”
05 “Take It From Me”
06 “Caisse Noire”
07 “Never Never Never”
08 “O.M.W.”

Dead Hand Control is out 1/29 on Glassnote.