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April 23, 2009

Vampire Weekenders Prepping Second Album, Side Project With Ra Ra Riot

thumbnail icon: Vampire Weekenders Prepping Second Album, Side Project With Ra Ra Riot

Overlapping waves of hype and backlash behind them, Vampire Weekend have moved on to the business of making new music. Except that they been had making new music since the halcyon Vampire Weekend days. We first heard "White Sky" on that little record's support tour, and again recently on Fallon. Now Ezra's talking about the VW followup to EW.com, saying that scarf-loving keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij will once again produce the sessions. They've been in the studio for a solid month, Koenig describing the aesthetic direction thusly:

It's definitely going to be a recognizably Vampire Weekend sound, but there are going to be new sounds. We're trying to challenge ourselves not to use the same bag of tricks that we used on the first album -- different instruments, stuff like that.

Also worth noting that "White Sky" will make the cut, although the album version will more closely resemble the concert take than the slowed down acoustic version for Late Night. Koenig promises the song will feature more synths and a sound that's "a little more pumped up." Which doesn't sound too far off from a supergroup-y side-project everybody's posting about this week called Discovery, featuring Rostam and lead Ra Ra Rioter Wes Miles. From what's available, the vibe's decidedly R&B synth pop. Get familiar (UPDATE: Re-upped with studio mastered versions):

Discovery - "Orange Shirt" (Mastered) (MP3)
Discovery - "Osaka Loop Line" (Mastered) (MP3)

They are not a new project per se; Wes and Rostam's passion pit has had a MySpace left dormant since a 2008 blog post promising that they weren't dead, and one of these MP3s has had an ID3 date stamp of 12/21/07, but that is right around when things (i.e. blogs) happened so I guess the time is now to break the holding pattern. This week's flood of music blog posts on the project can be attributed to word that Discovery will release something official this year. We'll keep you posted, in the meantime keep up at their Space.

Posted at 5:52 PM by amrit in
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39 Comments

really diggin this discovery shit

Posted by: cooper at 04/23/09 6:12 PM | Reply
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THATS THE WINDOW TO JOSH BRANDT'S ROOM

Posted by: Ray J. at 04/23/09 6:24 PM | Reply
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kind of interesting that sg is owned by xl records....

Posted by: Walcott at 04/23/09 6:32 PM | Reply
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Greattttt, more blippy faux-r&b for white kids to bump in their parent's cars

Posted by: Aaron at 04/23/09 7:08 PM | Reply
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my sentiments exactly! love it!

Posted by: Jon in reply to Aaron's comment at 04/23/09 7:50 PM | Reply
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You might like my penis.

Posted by: White Guy in your shit in reply to Aaron's comment at 04/24/09 2:55 AM | Reply
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hmm...to downvote you or to upvote you. i don't which will do this comment more justice. but...exaaactly.

Posted by: faas in reply to Aaron's comment at 04/24/09 12:00 PM | Reply
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Has anyone heard or have the remix for Ra Ra Riot's Can You Tell called Can You Discover that was on the Discovery myspace last year?

Posted by: Nick at 04/23/09 8:08 PM | Reply
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I cant wait till this record comes out and sucks and then I never have to hear about them ever again, yeah!

Posted by: Too Cool For School at 04/23/09 8:23 PM | Reply
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i bet your life sucks

Posted by: perfectly comfterable being in school in reply to Too Cool For School's comment at 04/23/09 8:30 PM | Reply
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Actually it's AWESOME because I can spell comfortable, yeah! And later I am going to go shopping for sweater vests with VW, yeah!

Posted by: Too Cool For School in reply to perfectly comfterable being in school's comment at 04/24/09 8:33 AM | Reply
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The only thing whiter than Vampire Weekend is talking shit about Vampire Weekend.

Posted by: mouchette1 profile link in reply to Too Cool For School's comment at 04/24/09 10:32 AM | Reply
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Great, because I'm in the KKK, yeah!

Posted by: Too Cool For School in reply to mouchette1's comment at 04/24/09 8:47 PM | Reply
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discovery is so great.
i had been hoping vw would record the fast / good version of white sky rather than the slow / boring one... some good news, thank you

Posted by: genevieve at 04/23/09 9:07 PM | Reply
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Mr_Blue_Angel_Dood

Sounds good to me. I still think they kind of messed with "White Sky" by slowing it down but its all good in the hood.

Posted by: Mr_Blue_Angel_Dood profile link at 04/23/09 9:07 PM | Reply
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Great news. Although by the title I got my hopes up at a RRR VW collabotation

Posted by: Peter K profile link at 04/23/09 10:34 PM | Reply
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Great news about the album! But looking at the title of the article I got my hopes up for a VW, RRR collaboration

Posted by: Peter K profile link at 04/23/09 10:35 PM | Reply
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BONA_FIDE

I am happy that they are using the faster version of "White Sky" definitely. And i am loving Discovery! Ra Ra and Vampire Weekend working together means good things. I hope the new VW album is good, i want something different but still perfectly pop and fun. I believe in them though!
http://bonafidewithheadphones.blogspot.com/

Posted by: BONA_FIDE profile link at 04/23/09 11:53 PM | Reply
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Sophomore madness! Succeess? Failure? Cutting Edge? Yesterday's has-been?

I should start an indie gambling curcuit for sophopmore records ... with bracket charts..etc.

seriously ... I need a web designer. (probably exists already)

Posted by: Burg at 04/24/09 9:30 AM | Reply
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Anyone else catch the genius of the headline? "Prepping" new album? Love it

Posted by: prepping at 04/24/09 9:40 AM | Reply
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It's funny how when Chris Cornell comes out with a record produced by Timbaland, everyone tears him a new asshole, and rightly so, it sucked hard, but when two guys from bands you like come out with an electropop album, everyone is talking about how great it is. This music sucks. Just because the people making it have indie-cred, it doesn't make these songs any less cheesily produced smooth jams. How bout a little equal opportunity bashing based on the music and not just the people...This music sucks.

Posted by: jesse at 04/24/09 11:00 AM | Reply
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are you really trying to justify what chris cornell put out? get a life, these songs rule regardless of what bands they are in.

Posted by: Josh in reply to jesse's comment at 04/24/09 12:04 PM | Reply
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it's always funny when vampire weekend posts come out because stereogum turns into after-school day care.

Posted by: derek at 04/24/09 12:06 PM | Reply
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this discovery shit is worse than tinted windows. it's like r.kelly if r.kelly was a talentless white woman.

Posted by: faas at 04/24/09 12:34 PM | Reply
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This is awful.

Posted by: RayRay at 04/24/09 2:15 PM | Reply
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"This week's flood of music blog posts on the project can be attributed to word that Discovery will release something official this year."

I read this on Electrotrash a couple days ago but they didn't credit a source either. Where are these reports coming from? Their myspace has been hinting at an album for over a year; why is it suddenly news?

Posted by: phil at 04/24/09 4:08 PM | Reply
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Orange Shirt reminds me of The-Dream...Hmmmmm, well if it worked for Justin

Posted by: TT at 04/24/09 6:34 PM | Reply
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how the hell have i missed this VW/ra ra collab if its been out so long? this is sick shit.

Posted by: tommy at 04/24/09 7:13 PM | Reply
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chris

Holy Postal Service! Sounds like somebody got Reason 4 for christmas

Posted by: chris profile link at 04/24/09 8:22 PM | Reply
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I do not listen to either of these bands, but I think these Discovery jams are pretty good.
Why can't you understand that it's just a matter of taste instead of calling out kids for being stupid hipster bastards when you calling them out makes you just that.
To each their own, that's the beauty of music.

Posted by: Jeff at 04/26/09 2:56 PM | Reply
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Awww yeah! The Osaka Loop Line is quite possibly the most convenient train route ever! Which one of these guys lived in Japan?

Posted by: Argus at 04/27/09 1:54 PM | Reply
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This sounds like The Lonely Island.
It's funnier, too.

Posted by: tony at 04/28/09 1:11 AM | Reply
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osaka loop line is my favorite song of 2009 so far

Posted by: Peter K profile link at 04/28/09 10:45 PM | Reply
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I can't wait for the new album! Also this discovery stuff is really good

Posted by: Flow-rest at 04/29/09 1:23 PM | Reply
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I am excited to hear what new instruments and sounds VW will be using in their next album! And although it was suprising that Wes+Rastam=Electro R&B it has really grown on me especially Osaka

Posted by: Kelly at 04/29/09 1:29 PM | Reply
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Probably those guitars that are like, double guitars.

Posted by: WallabyJoe in reply to Kelly's comment at 04/29/09 1:45 PM | Reply
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I hope they dive even deeper into their south african style of music. Any more exotic types of percussions and things would be welcomed. I canalso see them adding more strings to their chamber sounds

Posted by: Peter W in reply to WallabyJoe's comment at 04/30/09 1:29 PM | Reply
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I agree with the idea that they will delve deeper into their afro-pop sounds. I hope when Ezra mentioned Synths he doesnt mean that the new album will have alot of synths

Posted by: PJP in reply to WallabyJoe's comment at 04/30/09 3:20 PM | Reply
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