The rest of Maximum Balloon fell into place similarly: “Most of the time it was me grilling, making dinner or something, someone coming over and checking out [what I’m working on], and being like, ‘Yo, I like that,’ and then I’m like, ‘Alright, tear it up!’”
     This being Dave Sitek, the names of the people he has over for dinner could headline a festival in their own right. Karen O, the whirlwind singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sitek’s TV on the Radio band-mates Tunde Adebimbe and Kyp Malone, and even David Byrne all provided vocals for Maximum Balloon. The unique format of the album also allowed Sitek to work with a number of lesser known, up-and-coming artists, like Holly Miranda, Little Dragon, Nayfo, and Theophilius London.
     This keeps Maximum Balloon from being a proper solo album, a label Sitek is eager to dismiss: “I think the spotlight is on the whole collective. It’s definitely not ‘David Andrew Sitek,’ or anything like that.” Instead, Sitek considers the project to be purely about the music and his collaborators. “There’s little or nothing to do with me,” Sitek says. “My biggest goal was to have this record be a giant arrow to all the artists involved. If anyone is listening to Maximum Balloon who doesn’t know these artists it’ll encourage them to look them up, because everyone is involved in something. [They’re] all wildly talented and in their own direction.”