1.
This TV On The Radio album, Nine Types of Light (Interscope), is a lush and beautiful album that stands apart from the group's previous work. If their other albums had shades of dystopia and distress, this album, sung by Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, is filled with songs about longing and love. "I like love songs. There's nothing particularly interesting going on with me in my life to bear this work. I like the forms of love songs, the poetry." Kyp adds that though there might be more "positivity" on this album, it wasn't an overall conceit they set out to do. "We've attempted to work on themes before but they fall apart very quickly. More organic versions arise because we're sharing time or space or communication."

Though Nine Types of Light will sound like an album full of love songs, often the true meaning of the songs lie deeper. On "You," Tunde sings a haunted refrain; you're the only one I have ever loved. The sincerity of his voice sells the idea of absolute adoration. But Tunde explains, "It's a song about the feeling you get sometimes when you're expressing how much you care about someone but resorting to these beautiful sounding lies. You're the only one I ever loved? It's a terrible thing to say to someone because it's most likely not true."

2.
Nine Types of Light is the fourth album from TV on the Radio. You will want to refer to it as the "fourth proper studio album" from TV On The Radio; those albums were preceded by an EP, Young Liars, and an 18-track handmade CD called OK Calculator, that is considered more like a demo tape (because it was "released" by being hidden in random sofa cushions of New York coffee shops). Enhancing nearly every aspect of their Shortlist Prize-winning Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain was released to crazy universal acclaim. Rolling Stone said "It might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious album of the year," with The New York Times agreeing: "It's more experimental yet catchier, more introspective yet more assertive, by turns gloomier and funnier, and above all richer in both sound and implication. `Return to Cookie Mountain' is simply one of this year's best albums."

Nine Types of Light is the follow-up to the band's gorgeous, glorious 2008 release, Dear Science, and proved to be its breakout release. It was named album of the year by Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, Entertainment Weekly and MTV; and touring behind the album, the group sold out a year's worth of live shows across the world. This, however, did not prevent everyone from referring to TV On The Radio as a Brooklyn band. That is not a bad thing. The group - Tunde Adebimpe, Kyp Malone, Dave Sitek, Jaleel Bunton, Gerard Smith - are indeed from Brooklyn.

3.
But sometimes it's ok to leave. The band recorded Nine Types of Light in Los Angeles, the first time they have recorded outside of Brooklyn. In 2010, the group's multi-instrumentalist, producer and sometimes beat-boxer, Dave Sitek, moved to Los Angeles because he wanted a change of scenery. Nine Types of Light was recorded at his home studio. The experience of recording away from the friendly confines of Greenpoint and Williamsburg wasn't such a pleasant one, however, but not because of any reactionary dislike of LA that sometimes comes from New Yorkers. "I actually like Los Angeles a lot," says Jaleel. "But if there's a bohemian part of the city, a place that can be a creative sanctuary, we were staying in a place that was the opposite."

"It was in a high-end mall down the street from Rodeo Drive, and a few blocks from the Modern Instituted of Plastic Surgery," says Tunde. "And they were doing construction on our floor the whole time we were there. It wasn't so much squalor as it was...if I were a door-to-door salesman, it's where I would kill myself."

Nine Types of Light was written and recorded in about three months - slightly quicker than they've recorded any previous album.

4.
TV On The Radio do not write traditional pop songs. Often, they change direction two or three times in one song. Distorted guitars, sauntering and reverberating bass, TVOTR tunes are just-barely containing an explosive amount of energy underneath itself - and that tension is nothing less than thrilling. It has become somewhat of a signature of the band, particularly matched with Tunde's serene and poetic vocals. On this album, the group takes an admittedly simpler approach to some of their songs. "Will Do," starts out with wind chimes before giving away to that trademark buzz, with Tunde singing about the yearning for his ungovernable, unrequited love of another. "I think the songs on this album, to me, maybe sound simpler," Tunde says. "But it just might be that we have gotten better at what we do."

Other songs on Nine Types Of Light include more up-tempo post-rock jams like "No Future Shock" (vocals by Kyp) and the '80s-rap-beat "Caffeinated Consciousness," which sounds like it was influenced by Big Audio Dynamite. There are two songs, "All Falls Down" and "The Troubles," that will be available on the Deluxe Edition of the album.

5.
Nine Types of Light might sound like a peculiar name for an album. Perhaps a reference to a core scientific principle on the refraction of sunlight. Or a grand ideology of film or photography techniques. But the album title actually isn't a reference to anything specific, the band says. It holds no cryptic meaning. "It's something that kept circling around in my head," Tunde says. "It struck me as odd that that phrase, when you keep it to just nine types of light, it's excluding a billion other types of light. I like how it's a little slippery." Thus, no one should ask Tunde to actually list the nine types of light he is referring to.

6.
There is a cycle that a band goes through with each release that involves recording an album, releasing it and then touring behind it. For a group with a loyal and growing fan-base like TV On The Radio, that cycle can last about two years, which is an awful lot of time to spend with people in a highly-creative environment. This is what happened after Dear Science. "After the last show (for Dear Science), I just wanted to do anything that wasn't this," Tunde explains. "It was such an intense experience - not bad or good necessarily, just intense. I spent a lot of time after that writing and drawing pictures." Says Gerard Smith, "It allows us to do the other things we want to do, or to just decompress, and then come back to the band with some focus. We don't ever want to feel like we have to do this, that it's a job, necessarily."

7.
As celebrated and wonderful as TV On The Radio is, the entity is not enough to contain the entire creative thirst of its members, and the band's five members accomplished in the time between albums. Tunde and Gerard wrote and composed music for "The Lottery," a documentary that looks at public education through the eyes of Harlem's Success Academy annual intake lottery. Tunde also worked on a series of short film that he says may or may not ever see the light of day. He, of course, also starred in the Oscar-nominated film, Rachel Getting Married. Gerard spent time making music on his own, producing new music from the NYC-based Midnight Masses. Jaleel spent the period in between records moving out from behind the drums to playing guitar again, his first instrument. He also played in the blues and gospel band, Reverend Vince Anderson & His Love Choir ("One of my favorite gigs ever," he says.), and continued to periodically tend bar at legendary Lower East Side bar, Max Fish.

Dave Sitek released his own solo album, under the name, Maximum Balloon (DGC/Interscope), which featured friends like Karen O, Theophilus London and David Byrne. He played with, collaborated with and produced artists like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wale and Holly Miranda. Recently he announced he would be producing and playing bass on the new album from Jane's Addiction. Kyp released his solo album under the name Rain Machine, and embarked on a couple of brief tours, including a recent one with his friend from San Francisco, singer-songwriter, Jolie Holland. One would think the last thing they'd want to do during a break would be more recording and touring, but Kyp felt differently. He says, "I feel like every concentrated experience of making a record, touring a record, and playing with different people, dealing with different social dynamics potentially increases my musicianship and how I understand music."

8.
TV On The Radio plan an extensive tour beginning just before the release of Nine Types of Light. They will headline Radio City Music Hall in New York on April 13, the day after the album's release.

Tunde Adebimpe-Vocals Kyp Malone- Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Synths David Andrew Sitek-Programming, Guitars, Samples, Bass, Synths Gerard A Smith- Bass, Organ, Synths, Samples, Rhodes Jaleel Bunton-Drums, Guitars, Rhodes, Organ, Synths, Bass, Programming

"A lot of bands have something to say," explains TV On The Radio producer/multi-instrumentalist David Sitek. "We have something to ask."

Indeed. Good luck finding easy answers in TVOTR's ever-evolving soundscapes, though, whether we're talking about their new disc, Dear Science (DGC/Interscope) or the band's early days. When guitarist/vocalist Kyp Malone joined, he didn't even get what Sitek and vocalist Tunde Adebimpe were going for on their self-released 2002 debut, OK Calculator.

"Aspects of OK Calculator are genius," says Malone, "but it isn't as laser-focused as Young Liars." Neither were Adebimpe and Sitek's early live sets, boundless and brash bits of performance art that Malone remembers as "an open mic/karaoke night gone awry. I could hear songs peeking through it all but it wasn't really my thing."

Boy did that change in 2003, as Young Liars became Malone's favorite CD-R (he'd often play it for the latte sippers at a local coffee shop) and the group's first Touch & Go release. An immediate favorite among critics, the EP nailed Sitek's goal of sounding like a "grand four-track thing," from the epic, evocative balladry of "Blind" to the spectral pop trails of "Staring At the Sun." To make things even more interesting, Malone dropped his skepticism and joined the group full-time before Young Liars' official release, with drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith rounding out the band's rhythm section soon after.

"We had a gig in Iceland where we needed a full band so we asked the two best guitar players we knew, Gerard and Jaleel, to play drums and bass," explains Sitek, laughing. "It's absurd that Kyp and I are even holding a guitar when Jaleel and Gerard are f**king bananas at playing it."

While that may be true, TV On The Radio's loose approach to songwriting, recording and performing leaves an incredible amount of room for instrument-swapping and role reversals. Rather than rely on a stringent and stale guitars/bass/drums/vocals setup, the quintet often brings home-demoed sketches to the studio along with the attitude that a track needs to go through everyone's filter before it becomes a fully formed song.

"Music is the most flexible medium in the world for me," explains Sitek, the beat conductor responsible for distilling the band's tracks down to a living, breathing composition that's never cloying or cumbersome. "There is no shortage of ideas; the hard part is not following each whim."

As much as he tries to keep a record sounding lean, Sitek is quick to admit, "It takes most bands an album to get to a high track count. I can go from 4 to 96 in a day, without question. I'm track hungry, really. A lot of stuff isn't even an instrument."

The densest a TVOTR disc ever got was their third LP, 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain, a collection of songs you need to scale with hi-def headphones to truly appreciate. Sitek went a little lighter on the multi-tracking with this Dear Science, but not by much. The album's opener, "Halfway Home," is vintage TVOTR, for instance--a rich, speaker-swallowing canvas of careening beats, buzzing riffs (or are those synths?) and bloodletting vocals. Things get strange from that point on, however, as mirror balls spin (a dare-we-say-danceable "Crying," the helicopter hook of "Golden Age") and Adebimpe attacks "Dancing Choose" like a mic-wielding battle rapper.

And then there are the glimmers of drum & bass ("Shout Me Out"), drunken horn sections ("Red Dress," one of several songs to feature members of Antibalas), and carefully-plucked film score strings ("Stork & Owl") that spice up what's clearly TVOTR's most challenging effort yet. Not challenging in the sense of being a rough listen--challenging in terms of rewriting the group's supposed gloomy, stormy aesthetics.

"You know how people always say that comedians are some of the saddest people in the world?" asks Adebimpe. "Well, the opposite is true, too. As heavy as some of the songs get, the joking around that goes around between the five of us gets out of control sometimes."

"If people are listening to us because we're dark and brooding, great," adds Sitek, "But I think there's a greater percentage looking for us to do something different with every album. Some of the darkest songs on Dear Science are the more upbeat ones. Like 'Crying' is f**king heavy, dude."

If you' still toss on such beautifully-damaged tracks as "Dreams" and "Ambulance" when times get tough, don't worry--TV On The Radio still goes for the jugular in the melancholic and moody department. In fact, some of Dear Science sounds downright menacing. Take "DLZ": a fang-baring "f**k you" to the idea of death being "your last chance to do anything" according to Adebimpe, it's some of most frightening, and affecting, music in the TVOTR canon. "Stork & Owl" is much more muted in its mix of skittering beats, wilting strings and gorgeous, multi-tracked harmonies but good luck putting on a happy face after succumbing to its postmodern soul soundtrack.

"It's like Bukowski once said, 'I write all of this stuff to get away from it,'" explains Adebimpe, who struggled with the deaths of a friend and family member during the making of Dear Science. "Writing is a meditation, an exercise to put away all these painful things.'"

And that's ultimately what TV On The Radio still hopes to do with its music--they're still looking to connect, to make people feel something, anything no matter how up or down a song's arrangement is.

"I grew up listening to Joy Division, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Cure, the Smiths and the Swans," says Malone. "Some of that qualifies as 'goth' but it didn't make me depressed to listen to that music despite what my parents assumed. It didn't add to my 'angst' as a teenager. I simply identitfied with something in the music.

"It made me feel less alone, you know?" he continues. "If I could be that for someone else, that would make me happy. It'd be a real form of success for me."

1.
This TV On The Radio album, Nine Types of Light (Interscope), is a lush and beautiful album that stands apart from the group's previous work. If their other albums had shades of dystopia and distress, this album, sung by Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, is filled with songs about longing and love. "I like love songs. There's nothing particularly interesting going on with me in my life to bear this work. I like the forms of love songs, the poetry." Kyp adds that though there might be more "positivity" on this album, it wasn't an overall conceit they set out to do. "We've attempted to work on themes before but they fall apart very quickly. More organic versions arise because we're sharing time or space or communication."

Though Nine Types of Light will sound like an album full of love songs, often the true meaning of the songs lie deeper. On "You," Tunde sings a haunted refrain; you're the only one I have ever loved. The sincerity of his voice sells the idea of absolute adoration. But Tunde explains, "It's a song about the feeling you get sometimes when you're expressing how much you care about someone but resorting to these beautiful sounding lies. You're the only one I ever loved? It's a terrible thing to say to someone because it's most likely not true."

2.
Nine Types of Light is the fourth album from TV on the Radio. You will want to refer to it as the "fourth proper studio album" from TV On The Radio; those albums were preceded by an EP, Young Liars, and an 18-track handmade CD called OK Calculator, that is considered more like a demo tape (because it was "released" by being hidden in random sofa cushions of New York coffee shops). Enhancing nearly every aspect of their Shortlist Prize-winning Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain was released to crazy universal acclaim. Rolling Stone said "It might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious album of the year," with The New York Times agreeing: "It's more experimental yet catchier, more introspective yet more assertive, by turns gloomier and funnier, and above all richer in both sound and implication. `Return to Cookie Mountain' is simply one of this year's best albums."

Nine Types of Light is the follow-up to the band's gorgeous, glorious 2008 release, Dear Science, and proved to be its breakout release. It was named album of the year by Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, Entertainment Weekly and MTV; and touring behind the album, the group sold out a year's worth of live shows across the world. This, however, did not prevent everyone from referring to TV On The Radio as a Brooklyn band. That is not a bad thing. The group - Tunde Adebimpe, Kyp Malone, Dave Sitek, Jaleel Bunton, Gerard Smith - are indeed from Brooklyn.

3.
But sometimes it's ok to leave. The band recorded Nine Types of Light in Los Angeles, the first time they have recorded outside of Brooklyn. In 2010, the group's multi-instrumentalist, producer and sometimes beat-boxer, Dave Sitek, moved to Los Angeles because he wanted a change of scenery. Nine Types of Light was recorded at his home studio. The experience of recording away from the friendly confines of Greenpoint and Williamsburg wasn't such a pleasant one, however, but not because of any reactionary dislike of LA that sometimes comes from New Yorkers. "I actually like Los Angeles a lot," says Jaleel. "But if there's a bohemian part of the city, a place that can be a creative sanctuary, we were staying in a place that was the opposite."

"It was in a high-end mall down the street from Rodeo Drive, and a few blocks from the Modern Instituted of Plastic Surgery," says Tunde. "And they were doing construction on our floor the whole time we were there. It wasn't so much squalor as it was...if I were a door-to-door salesman, it's where I would kill myself."

Nine Types of Light was written and recorded in about three months - slightly quicker than they've recorded any previous album.

4.
TV On The Radio do not write traditional pop songs. Often, they change direction two or three times in one song. Distorted guitars, sauntering and reverberating bass, TVOTR tunes are just-barely containing an explosive amount of energy underneath itself - and that tension is nothing less than thrilling. It has become somewhat of a signature of the band, particularly matched with Tunde's serene and poetic vocals. On this album, the group takes an admittedly simpler approach to some of their songs. "Will Do," starts out with wind chimes before giving away to that trademark buzz, with Tunde singing about the yearning for his ungovernable, unrequited love of another. "I think the songs on this album, to me, maybe sound simpler," Tunde says. "But it just might be that we have gotten better at what we do."

Other songs on Nine Types Of Light include more up-tempo post-rock jams like "No Future Shock" (vocals by Kyp) and the '80s-rap-beat "Caffeinated Consciousness," which sounds like it was influenced by Big Audio Dynamite. There are two songs, "All Falls Down" and "The Troubles," that will be available on the Deluxe Edition of the album.

5.
Nine Types of Light might sound like a peculiar name for an album. Perhaps a reference to a core scientific principle on the refraction of sunlight. Or a grand ideology of film or photography techniques. But the album title actually isn't a reference to anything specific, the band says. It holds no cryptic meaning. "It's something that kept circling around in my head," Tunde says. "It struck me as odd that that phrase, when you keep it to just nine types of light, it's excluding a billion other types of light. I like how it's a little slippery." Thus, no one should ask Tunde to actually list the nine types of light he is referring to.

6.
There is a cycle that a band goes through with each release that involves recording an album, releasing it and then touring behind it. For a group with a loyal and growing fan-base like TV On The Radio, that cycle can last about two years, which is an awful lot of time to spend with people in a highly-creative environment. This is what happened after Dear Science. "After the last show (for Dear Science), I just wanted to do anything that wasn't this," Tunde explains. "It was such an intense experience - not bad or good necessarily, just intense. I spent a lot of time after that writing and drawing pictures." Says Gerard Smith, "It allows us to do the other things we want to do, or to just decompress, and then come back to the band with some focus. We don't ever want to feel like we have to do this, that it's a job, necessarily."

7.
As celebrated and wonderful as TV On The Radio is, the entity is not enough to contain the entire creative thirst of its members, and the band's five members accomplished in the time between albums. Tunde and Gerard wrote and composed music for "The Lottery," a documentary that looks at public education through the eyes of Harlem's Success Academy annual intake lottery. Tunde also worked on a series of short film that he says may or may not ever see the light of day. He, of course, also starred in the Oscar-nominated film, Rachel Getting Married. Gerard spent time making music on his own, producing new music from the NYC-based Midnight Masses. Jaleel spent the period in between records moving out from behind the drums to playing guitar again, his first instrument. He also played in the blues and gospel band, Reverend Vince Anderson & His Love Choir ("One of my favorite gigs ever," he says.), and continued to periodically tend bar at legendary Lower East Side bar, Max Fish.

Dave Sitek released his own solo album, under the name, Maximum Balloon (DGC/Interscope), which featured friends like Karen O, Theophilus London and David Byrne. He played with, collaborated with and produced artists like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wale and Holly Miranda. Recently he announced he would be producing and playing bass on the new album from Jane's Addiction. Kyp released his solo album under the name Rain Machine, and embarked on a couple of brief tours, including a recent one with his friend from San Francisco, singer-songwriter, Jolie Holland. One would think the last thing they'd want to do during a break would be more recording and touring, but Kyp felt differently. He says, "I feel like every concentrated experience of making a record, touring a record, and playing with different people, dealing with different social dynamics potentially increases my musicianship and how I understand music."

8.
TV On The Radio plan an extensive tour beginning just before the release of Nine Types of Light. They will headline Radio City Music Hall in New York on April 13, the day after the album's release.

1.
This TV On The Radio album, Nine Types of Light (Interscope), is a lush and beautiful album that stands apart from the group's previous work. If their other albums had shades of dystopia and distress, this album, sung by Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, is filled with songs about longing and love. "I like love songs. There's nothing particularly interesting going on with me in my life to bear this work. I like the forms of love songs, the poetry." Kyp adds that though there might be more "positivity" on this album, it wasn't an overall conceit they set out to do. "We've attempted to work on themes before but they fall apart very quickly. More organic versions arise because we're sharing time or space or communication."

Though Nine Types of Light will sound like an album full of love songs, often the true meaning of the songs lie deeper. On "You," Tunde sings a haunted refrain; you're the only one I have ever loved. The sincerity of his voice sells the idea of absolute adoration. But Tunde explains, "It's a song about the feeling you get sometimes when you're expressing how much you care about someone but resorting to these beautiful sounding lies. You're the only one I ever loved? It's a terrible thing to say to someone because it's most likely not true."

2.
Nine Types of Light is the fourth album from TV on the Radio. You will want to refer to it as the "fourth proper studio album" from TV On The Radio; those albums were preceded by an EP, Young Liars, and an 18-track handmade CD called OK Calculator, that is considered more like a demo tape (because it was "released" by being hidden in random sofa cushions of New York coffee shops). Enhancing nearly every aspect of their Shortlist Prize-winning Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain was released to crazy universal acclaim. Rolling Stone said "It might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious album of the year," with The New York Times agreeing: "It's more experimental yet catchier, more introspective yet more assertive, by turns gloomier and funnier, and above all richer in both sound and implication. `Return to Cookie Mountain' is simply one of this year's best albums."

Nine Types of Light is the follow-up to the band's gorgeous, glorious 2008 release, Dear Science, and proved to be its breakout release. It was named album of the year by Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, Entertainment Weekly and MTV; and touring behind the album, the group sold out a year's worth of live shows across the world. This, however, did not prevent everyone from referring to TV On The Radio as a Brooklyn band. That is not a bad thing. The group - Tunde Adebimpe, Kyp Malone, Dave Sitek, Jaleel Bunton, Gerard Smith - are indeed from Brooklyn.

3.
But sometimes it's ok to leave. The band recorded Nine Types of Light in Los Angeles, the first time they have recorded outside of Brooklyn. In 2010, the group's multi-instrumentalist, producer and sometimes beat-boxer, Dave Sitek, moved to Los Angeles because that's where the money he wanted a change of scenery. Nine Types of Light was recorded at his home studio. The experience of recording away from the friendly confines of Greenpoint and Williamsburg wasn't such a pleasant one, however, but not because of any reactionary dislike of LA that sometimes comes from New Yorkers. "I actually like Los Angeles a lot," says Jaleel. "But if there's a bohemian part of the city, a place that can be a creative sanctuary, we were staying in a place that was the opposite."

"It was in a high-end mall down the street from Rodeo Drive, and a few blocks from the Modern Instituted of Plastic Surgery," says Tunde. "And they were doing construction on our floor the whole time we were there. It wasn't so much squalor as it was...if I were a door-to-door salesman, it's where I would kill myself."

Nine Types of Light was written and recorded in about three months - slightly quicker than they've recorded any previous album.

4.
TV On The Radio do not write traditional pop songs. Often, they change direction two or three times in one song. Distorted guitars, sauntering and reverberating bass, TVOTR tunes are just-barely containing an explosive amount of energy underneath itself - and that tension is nothing less than thrilling. It has become somewhat of a signature of the band, particularly matched with Tunde's serene and poetic vocals. On this album, the group takes an admittedly simpler approach to some of their songs. "Will Do," starts out with wind chimes before giving away to that trademark buzz, with Tunde singing about the yearning for his ungovernable, unrequited love of another. "I think the songs on this album, to me, maybe sound simpler," Tunde says. "But it just might be that we have gotten better at what we do."

Other songs on Nine Types Of Light include more up-tempo post-rock jams like "No Future Shock" (vocals by Kyp) and the '80s-rap-beat "Caffeinated Consciousness," which sounds like it was influenced by Big Audio Dynamite. There are two songs, "All Falls Down" and "The Troubles," that will be available on the Deluxe Edition of the album.

5.
Nine Types of Light might sound like a peculiar name for an album. Perhaps a reference to a core scientific principle on the refraction of sunlight. Or a grand ideology of film or photography techniques. But the album title actually isn't a reference to anything specific, the band says. It holds no cryptic meaning. "It's something that kept circling around in my head," Tunde says. "It struck me as odd that that phrase, when you keep it to just nine types of light, it's excluding a billion other types of light. I like how it's a little slippery." Thus, no one should ask Tunde to actually list the nine types of light he is referring to.

6.
There is a cycle that a band goes through with each release that involves recording an album, releasing it and then touring behind it. For a group with a loyal and growing fan-base like TV On The Radio, that cycle can last about two years, which is an awful lot of time to spend with people in a highly-creative environment. This is what happened after Dear Science. "After the last show (for Dear Science), I just wanted to do anything that wasn't this," Tunde explains. "It was such an intense experience - not bad or good necessarily, just intense. I spent a lot of time after that writing and drawing pictures." Says Gerard Smith, "It allows us to do the other things we want to do, or to just decompress, and then come back to the band with some focus. We don't ever want to feel like we have to do this, that it's a job, necessarily."

7.
As celebrated and wonderful as TV On The Radio is, the entity is not enough to contain the entire creative thirst of its members, and the band's five members accomplished in the time between albums. Tunde and Gerard wrote and composed music for "The Lottery," a documentary that looks at public education through the eyes of Harlem's Success Academy annual intake lottery. Tunde also worked on a series of short film that he says may or may not ever see the light of day. He, of course, also starred in the Oscar-nominated film, Rachel Getting Married. Gerard spent time making music on his own, producing new music from the NYC-based Midnight Masses. Jaleel spent the period in between records moving out from behind the drums to playing guitar again, his first instrument. He also played in the blues and gospel band, Reverend Vince Anderson & His Love Choir ("One of my favorite gigs ever," he says.), and continued to periodically tend bar at legendary Lower East Side bar, Max Fish.

Dave Sitek released his own solo album, under the name, Maximum Balloon (DGC/Interscope), which featured friends like Karen O, Theophilus London and David Byrne. He played with, collaborated with and produced artists like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wale and Holly Miranda. Recently he announced he would be producing and playing bass on the new album from Jane's Addiction. Kyp released his solo album under the name Rain Machine, and embarked on a couple of brief tours, including a recent one with his friend from San Francisco, singer-songwriter, Jolie Holland. One would think the last thing they'd want to do during a break would be more recording and touring, but Kyp felt differently. He says, "I feel like every concentrated experience of making a record, touring a record, and playing with different people, dealing with different social dynamics potentially increases my musicianship and how I understand music."

8.
TV On The Radio plan an extensive tour beginning just before the release of Nine Types of Light. They will headline Radio City Music Hall in New York on April 13, the day after the album's release.

Dear Science,

Tunde Adebimpe - Vocals Kyp Malone - Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Synths David Andrew Sitek - Programming, Guitars, Samples, Bass, Synths Gerard A Smith - Bass, Organ, Synths, Samples, Rhodes Jaleel Bunton - Drums, Guitars, Rhodes, Organ, Synths, Bass, Programming

"A lot of bands have something to say," explains TV On The Radio producer/multi-instrumentalist David Sitek. "We have something to ask."

Indeed. Good luck finding easy answers in TVOTR's ever-evolving soundscapes, though, whether we're talking about their new disc, Dear Science (DGC/Interscope) or the band's early days. When guitarist/vocalist Kyp Malone joined, he didn't even get what Sitek and vocalist Tunde Adebimpe were going for on their self-released 2002 debut, OK Calculator.

"Aspects of OK Calculator are genius," says Malone, "but it isn't as laser-focused as Young Liars." Neither were Adebimpe and Sitek's early live sets, boundless and brash bits of performance art that Malone remembers as "an open mic/karaoke night gone awry. I could hear songs peeking through it all but it wasn't really my thing."

Boy did that change in 2003, as Young Liars became Malone's favorite CD-R (he'd often play it for the latte sippers at a local coffee shop) and the group's first Touch & Go release. An immediate favorite among critics, the EP nailed Sitek's goal of sounding like a "grand four-track thing," from the epic, evocative balladry of "Blind" to the spectral pop trails of "Staring At the Sun." To make things even more interesting, Malone dropped his skepticism and joined the group full-time before Young Liars' official release, with drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith rounding out the band's rhythm section soon after.

"We had a gig in Iceland where we needed a full band so we asked the two best guitar players we knew, Gerard and Jaleel, to play drums and bass," explains Sitek, laughing. "It's absurd that Kyp and I are even holding a guitar when Jaleel and Gerard are fucking bananas at playing it."

While that may be true, TV On The Radio's loose approach to songwriting, recording and performing leaves an incredible amount of room for instrument-swapping and role reversals. Rather than rely on a stringent and stale guitars/bass/drums/vocals setup, the quintet often brings home-demoed sketches to the studio along with the attitude that a track needs to go through everyone's filter before it becomes a fully formed song.

"Music is the most flexible medium in the world for me," explains Sitek, the beat conductor responsible for distilling the band's tracks down to a living, breathing composition that's never cloying or cumbersome. "There is no shortage of ideas; the hard part is not following each whim."

As much as he tries to keep a record sounding lean, Sitek is quick to admit, "It takes most bands an album to get to a high track count. I can go from 4 to 96 in a day, without question. I'm track hungry, really. A lot of stuff isn't even an instrument."

The densest a TVOTR disc ever got was their third LP, 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain, a collection of songs you need to scale with hi-def headphones to truly appreciate. Sitek went a little lighter on the multi-tracking with this Dear Science, but not by much. The album's opener, "Halfway Home," is vintage TVOTR, for instance--a rich, speaker-swallowing canvas of careening beats, buzzing riffs (or are those synths?) and bloodletting vocals. Things get strange from that point on, however, as mirror balls spin (a dare-we-say-danceable "Crying," the helicopter hook of "Golden Age") and Adebimpe attacks "Dancing Choose" like a mic-wielding battle rapper.

And then there are the glimmers of drum & bass ("Shout Me Out"), drunken horn sections ("Red Dress," one of several songs to feature members of Antibalas), and carefully-plucked film score strings ("Stork & Owl") that spice up what's clearly TVOTR's most challenging effort yet. Not challenging in the sense of being a rough listen--challenging in terms of rewriting the group's supposed gloomy, stormy aesthetics.

"You know how people always say that comedians are some of the saddest people in the world?" asks Adebimpe. "Well, the opposite is true, too. As heavy as some of the songs get, the joking around that goes around between the five of us gets out of control sometimes."

"If people are listening to us because we're dark and brooding, great," adds Sitek, "But I think there's a greater percentage looking for us to do something different with every album. Some of the darkest songs on Dear Science are the more upbeat ones. Like 'Crying' is f**king heavy, dude."

If you' still toss on such beautifully-damaged tracks as "Dreams" and "Ambulance" when times get tough, don't worry--TV On The Radio still goes for the jugular in the melancholic and moody department. In fact, some of Dear Science sounds downright menacing. Take "DLZ": a fang-baring "f**k you" to the idea of death being "your last chance to do anything" according to Adebimpe, it's some of most frightening, and affecting, music in the TVOTR canon. "Stork & Owl" is much more muted in its mix of skittering beats, wilting strings and gorgeous, multi-tracked harmonies but good luck putting on a happy face after succumbing to its postmodern soul soundtrack.

"It's like Bukowski once said, 'I write all of this stuff to get away from it,'" explains Adebimpe, who struggled with the deaths of a friend and family member during the making of Dear Science. "Writing is a meditation, an exercise to put away all these painful things.'"

And that's ultimately what TV On The Radio still hopes to do with its music--they're still looking to connect, to make people feel something, anything no matter how up or down a song's arrangement is.

"I grew up listening to Joy Division, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Cure, the Smiths and the Swans," says Malone. "Some of that qualifies as 'goth' but it didn't make me depressed to listen to that music despite what my parents assumed. It didn't add to my 'angst' as a teenager. I simply identitfied with something in the music.

"It made me feel less alone, you know?" he continues. "If I could be that for someone else, that would make me happy. It'd be a real form of success for me."