The good news is that the past few years have seen a significant uptick in recognition for all the great music that came out of the early-2000s NYC post-punk revival; the bad news is that the reason for that is simply because these albums have all somehow started turning 20 years old. Depending on how much you liked the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah self-titled, a vinyl reissue and world tour may be worth being blindsided by having to confront your own mortality while browsing your favorite music blog.
One such band that’s had an exciting year is TV on the Radio—a project that feels like it just formally went on hiatus, yet which has regrouped in celebration of the anniversary of their 2004 debut album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes—including an expanded reissue of the record as well as some touring. It’s been over a decade since the outfit released a new record, though their individual members seem to be keeping busy with plenty of work within and outside of music: multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek has become an in-demand producer and session player, working with the likes of Halsey, 070 Shake, and Chelsea Wolfe lately, while frontman Tunde Adebimpe just released his debut solo record last week.
As the band maintains a sense of ubiquity despite there being no formal indication that they have any new material on the horizon, we figured it might be a good time to look back on some of their peripheral work either as a band or as individuals that falls outside of the established TVotR canon—side-projects and solo ventures that generated precisely one album, remixes, covers, things that involve one or several members of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and everything in between.
OK Calculator (2002)
Behind every great debut from a Meet Me in the Bathroom band is a tape-hiss demo collection that initially garnered them both word-of-mouth acclaim and interest from labels. But rather than OK Calculator’s 18 tracks being stuffed with preliminary versions of soon-to-be hit singles (it does include “Freeway” and “On a Train” from Desperate Youth) and other attention-seeking behavior, this thing is almost exclusively just Tunde Adebimpe and Dave Sitek goofing off (see: the weirdly endearing lo-fi slacker-rock of “Bicycles Are Red Hot,” the text-to-speak interlude about robots fucking everything and everywhere “Robots”) with a few moments of the inspired a cappella brilliance that was later explored more earnestly (and hauntingly) on songs like “Ambulance.”
Trent Reznor, Peter Murphy, & TV on the Radio, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (Bauhaus cover) (2007)
In the midst of touring their most gothic art-rock album, Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio linked up with Trent Reznor and Peter Murphy in DC to perform a brief covers set. Which, yeah, sounds very cool in concept, though the reality appears to be a bit under-thought-out as seen in their “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” collaboration: Reznor and Murphy take turns on lead vocals while Tunde sort of awkwardly claps and contributes backing vocals every once in a while as the rest of the band provides the brooding post-punk instrumental. Murphy mostly just serves as hype man, though, shredding a cig and throwing flower petals at the band.
The Knife, “Marble House” (Davidandrewsitek's Knifehorse Remix) (2007)
Sitek has a fairly robust portfolio as a remix artist, reworking tracks by NIN, Tegan and Sara, MF DOOM, and many more, though one of my favorites is his loping take on this already-transfixing Silent Shout single.
Scarlett Johansson, Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008)
I don’t know how well-remembered it is that Scarlet Johansson released a debut album in 2008 largely reworking Tom Waits’ music as blog-core indie-pop with the help of TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and her Prestige castmate David Bowie—not to mention production by Dave Sitek—but the eerily simmering “Song for Jo” has more in common with Cookie Mountain than just about anything on Dear Science.
Tunde Adebimpe, “Unknown Legend” (Neil Young cover) (2008)
I guess Tunde’s solo career technically launched in 2008 when he serenaded Rosemary DeWitt at the altar in a powerfully wholesome moment within Jonathan Demme’s tour de force of so, so many emotions, Rachel Getting Married. True to much of the rest of his most inspired work, it’s a cappella.
Rain Machine, Rain Machine (2009)
2009 was sort of the peak of the whole freak-folk thing, as reflected in Kyp Malone’s lone solo venture embracing the outré sounds of bands like Akron/Family and Animal Collective (well, pre-2009 AnCo). Kinda seemed like a natural fit for his erratic vocal style.
Fake Male Voice, Cous cous sous les nuages / OMG!!! FMV!!! (2009)
Tunde’s first stab at a solo project wound up being very short-lived, with his moniker Fake Male Voice releasing a lone 7-inch that never seemed to find its way online. I suppose that in a way, though, the OK Calculator–tier goofiness of those song titles confirmed Adebimpe’s penchant for letting loose creatively outside of the confines of his relatively conventional band.
Iran, Dissolver (2009)
Iran predates guitarist Kyp Malone’s days in TV on the Radio, though the band’s abstract noise and droning psychedelic pop was later shaped into something nearly as accessible as TVotR on their third album, Dissolver. While “Digital Clock and Phone” may feel truest to the project’s formlessly abrasive sound, the macabre art-rock that defines the rest of the record feels pretty distant from the heavenly electro-funk TVotR leaned into the year prior with Dear Science. Also, Sitek evidently played Wurlitzer on the album.
Dave Sitek, “With a Girl Like You” (2009)
To my knowledge, this is one of only two Dave Sitek solo recordings—a cover of The Troggs’ 1966 single for Red Hot’s Dark Was the Night comp—though his vocals’ striking resemblance to those of his bandmates make this sound like a TVotR B-side. The Cookie Mountain–era murky horns sure don’t help.
“Heroes” (David Bowie cover) (2009)
David Bowie wasn’t only TVotR’s collaborator-by-association on the highest-paid actress of 2018’s debut album, he also contributed backing vocals on Cookie Mountain. The band returned the favor by honoring Bowie with a uniquely clubby take on “Heroes” for Parlophone’s War Child covers album raising funds for the titular nonprofit aiding children in war-torn countries. Evidently the song was used by HBO to promote the fifth season of Game of Thrones—I’m sure it was selected due to all that context I just laid out.
Nat “King” Cole feat. TV on the Radio, “Nature Boy” (2009)
I mean, it sounds like an amateur mashup at best, but the band laid down a sick Massive-Attack-esque instrumental for this questionable bid for youthful relevance perpetrated on the late jazz singer, with CeeLo, will.i.am, and Just Blaze also appearing on the list of remixers.
Maximum Balloon, Maximum Balloon (2010)
In retrospect, Maximum Balloon didn’t really seem like the launch of a prolific solo career for Sitek so much as it signified that he’d amassed nearly a dozen instrumental tracks over the years that he was eager to collaborate with friends on. Tunde and Kyp each get a vocal feature, as well as David Byrne, Little Dragon, and longtime friend Karen O. Much more Nine Types of Light than what he brought to Dark Was the Night.
Liars, “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant” (Tunde Adebimpe Remix) (2010)
This is instantly recognizable as Tunde’s work with the looped beatbox intro, though the presence of his vocals reciting the track’s lyrics in lieu of Angus Andrews’ punk snarl shortly after—later even layered with additional backing vox—begs the question of why this wasn’t billed as a straight cover.
Jane’s Addiction, The Great Escape Artist (2011)
Yeah, Dave Sitek not only helped produce Jane’s Addiction’s (second) ill-advised reunion album, but he also officially joined the band on bass for about a year. Which seems to be longer than Flea and Duff McKagan both lasted in that role.
Dave Sitek, “God Damn Beauty” (2014)
Dave goes solo part II: Kind of a post–Edward Sharpe thing going on here with this single he slipped into a V/A collection of songs promoting his label Federal Prism.
Nevermen, Nevermen (2016)
I remember being surprised to learn that Tunde had formed a band with Faith No More’s Mike Patton and Anticon emcee Doseone, but his connection to the latter’s collective actually runs pretty deep—over the years he’d been featured on tracks by Odd Nosdam, Beans, and Dose’s band Subtle, and even materialized as a surprise guest at the now-defunct label’s 20th anniversary show in LA back in 2018 where he explained that he never would’ve gotten into music if he hadn’t stumbled upon a few tapes from Anticon artists in the late ’90s. Then he announced he was working on new music with Jel that never materialized.
Ice Balloons, Fiesta (2017)
As a spiritual successor to Iran, Kyp’s Ice Balloons project (featuring Surfbort drummer Sean Powell) released a single album’s worth of lo-fi punk laced with some of the most grating noise you’ve ever heard among a guitar-bass-drums lineup. Still waiting on Tunde to announce a one-off side-project with “Balloons” in the title.
Pussy Riot + Dave Sitek, “Bad Apples” (2018)
Believe it or not, Pussy Riot had some stuff to get off their chest at the onset of the first Trump administration, and Dave Sitek abetted them on this anti-authoritarian industrial synth-punk caper.
Tunde Adebimpe, A Warm Weather Ghost EP (2020)
Tunde seemed to be pretty busy working on music throughout the pandemic era: He covered “Comfortably Numb” for a Good Music comp, “Playing in the Band” with Lee Ranaldo for a Red Hot Grateful Dead tribute LP, “Sorrow Tears & Blood” for a Red Hot Fela Kuti tribute LP, and “The Drama You’ve Been Craving” for a Sleater-Kinney tribute LP (prior to this, he’d also covered “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” for the Vinyl OST—remember Vinyl?). But amid all of this, he also launched his solo career in earnest with a string of singles self-released on Bandcamp leading up to a full EP before Sub Pop accepted him into their fold.
The Neverly Boys, Dark Side of Everything (2020)
If the sole album Dave Sitek released with Daniel Ledinsky—a songwriter with co-writing credits for artists including Carly Rae Jepsen, Blondie, and Grouplove—sounds a bit breezier than anything else on this list, that’s because Sitek only really linked up with Ledinsky, in his words, “to hang out, drive around, and smoke cigarettes.” Naturally, some songs that share that vibe would emerge.
Bent Arcana, Bent Arcana (2021)
Kyp Malone was evidently the glue that held this bizarre jazz-fusion combo helmed by Osees’ John Dwyer together, given that when Malone didn’t return for their second collaboration, the moniker “Bent Arcana” was swapped for a messier, more conventionally-jazz list of the rotating quartet of artists who played on the increasingly improvisatory recordings (well, he did return for 2021’s Moon Drenched, which listed 10 names on the “artist” line). Seems like the Osees/TVotR connection goes way back to the former band’s beginnings, though, as Sitek helped engineer and produce (and play Mellotron on) some of the band’s earliest material.
