Model/Actriz close their sophomore album Pirouette on with a moment of unnerving clarity. “Baton,” the final track, unspools like an emotional unraveling—quiet, intimate, and existentially disorienting. Where the band’s debut Dogsbody throttled listeners with raw physicality and noise-drenched catharsis, Pirouette is more psychological, more vulnerable. It’s still intense, but this time the intensity is turned inward, flickering in the spaces between identity and perception.
On “Baton,” frontman Cole Haden recounts a conversation with his sister that slowly fractures his sense of self. She recalls a memory of him—one he doesn’t remember. It’s a small moment, but it opens a psychological trapdoor: if she carries a version of him in her mind, distinct from the one he holds, how many versions are out there? Dozens? Hundreds? Haden, who’s spent the last few years becoming a public figure, realizes he’s no longer in control of who “Cole” is. He’s been multiplied, splintered into countless selves projected by fans, friends, family, critics—each one slightly out of sync with the original. It’s a revelation that evokes the spiraling self-awareness of E.M. Forster’s Maurice, where the protagonist recognizes the reality of other people’s inner lives, but with a modern twist: Haden isn’t discovering other minds—he’s watching his own dissolve into them.
Musically, “Baton” is restrained but charged. A minimalist pulse drives the track, allowing space for Haden’s voice to feel almost naked. There’s none of the abrasive flair that defined Dogsbody. Instead, the tension comes from the stillness—from how much is not said, from the quiet terror of being seen too clearly or not at all. It’s a fitting end to an album that dances between emotional whiplash and tender disorientation. Pirouette isn’t just a step forward for Model/Actriz—it’s a turning inward, a mirror held up to a performer mid-spin, asking not just who he is, but how many versions of him are already out there, slipping further from reach.