Maximum Balloon

Maximum Balloon is Dave Sitek's new solo project. He is well known as the guitarist and record producer for TV on the Radio. The new project is essentially music created by him with a star guest vocalists on each track, including Dragon of Zynth's Aku Orracu-Tetteh, Brooklyn rapper Theophilus London, David Byrne, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, Little Dragon's Yukimi Nagano, Tunde Adebimpe, Kyp Malone, among others. Track by track prose preview here.

In an interview with SF Station, he talks about how much of a sandwich of influences he is, which is pretty evident based on the diverse group of guest vocalists above. Dave grew up in Columbia, MD and fell in love with a style of music called D.C. hardcore. Once he got bored with that, he got into Jamaican music, psychedelic music, and English pop-synth music, which have all greatly affected the way he plays instruments and produces records. Marijuana has also contributed to his entrancing and orgasmic walls of sound. Understandable from a producer's standpoint, "there is no way I could play a song back to myself 3,000 times unless I was stoned. I don't ever want to repeat myself, so I try not to be too conscious of the process." In the past two years, he has produced albums for Foals, Scarlett Johansson, TV on the Radio, Telepathe, Iran, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pink Noise, Wale, Holly Miranda, and Daniel Higgs. Is marijuana the new ritalin?

Here is a music video for Maximum Balloon's "Tiger" with guest vocalist Aku (he sounds just like Tunde Adebimpe, it's absurd). Below that is another video presented by Esquire magazine featuring the same song and also featuring Daisy Lowe. If Sitek can listen to the same song 3,000 times, trust me, you can listen to the same song twice.

Another track and more commentary once the record comes out on August 31.