On His Own

Chris Baio, the bassist of Vampire Weekend, has been working on his solo project for some time now, but The Names is his first album as Baio. Over the past couple months, he has been releasing a couple songs every so often, giving sneak peeks into what this album was going to be about and now the wait is finally over. While the project has not completely left the realm that Vampire Weekends exists in, Baio’s own sound does come out as The Names heads more in the dream pop direction.

Kicking off the album, “Brainwash yyrr Face” sets the relative pace that the album is going to stick to – a beat that is not quite a pace for a dance mix, but fast enough to keep everything moving. “The Names” follows after with a slightly slower pace, giving some time to come down from the intro and really hear and understand the sound of this album with its namesake song. 

“All the Idiots” is the longest song and also the only one without lyrical content. With just the instrumental section, Baio explores his abilities and talent at creating depth and full-dimensional sound. The Names closes out with “Scarlett” and with its strong snare beginning, this closing number has a strong feeling of finality.   

The Names has a theme of how contrasts can keep everything balanced. The album is filled with love songs that get paired with hazy, not quite love-ballad music and not quite so lovely analogies (like a kid knocking his head on a slide). Also, there is a perfect balance between sound and silence which usually gets ignored. Both “I Was Born in a Marathon” and “Scarlett” use appropriate moments of silence to help build up their song. Overall, each song on The Names is able to exist independently and even those that bleed into each other still retain their own identity. Nothing becomes repetitive, even with songs like “Endless Rhythm.” While Baio’s project may not be a complete sidestep away from Vampire Weekend, this is definitely a good start.