In some ways it's much more challenging to preserve that and to also make music that sounds modern. "You want the personality of each performer-whether it's singing or bass or drums or piano-to be intact. "On this album, there's a lot of organic sounds and a lot of performance," Batmanglij said. Batmanglij enjoyed the change of scenery from Brooklyn, reveling in "being able to record in a room that's surrounded by trees" at Rechtshaid's Echo Park studio. with Ariel Rechtshaid, who has produced work by Usher, Major Lazer, Alex Clare and the Plain White T's. So we experimented."Īpparently the experimentation proved worthwhile Spin heard and seemingly dug a chunk of the record, calling it "a family of songs that feels tough, less edited and decidedly from-the-gut." The recording went down in L.A.
That can be a weird feeling because it's not always clear what you do in that moment. "And when you prioritize like that, you're going to be in a situation where you write things that are good, but not good enough. There wasn’t exactly that same time pressure or that urge to show people our ideas really quickly, so we could focus very purely on songwriting," Koenig says. "Neither of us had ever been there before so it was cool to drive to a new place and work continuously. One of the most major writing sessions between Batmanglij and guitarist/lead vocalist Ezra Koenig went down on Martha's Vineyard last spring.
The material has been taking shape for three years, with Batmanglij and his comrades cobbling tunes together on the road and in their homes. "And maybe that's why this was a hard record to make: we wanted it to be simple and bare, we wanted you to hear us coming through the speakers." "It's distinct because it's instinctive," producer and multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij tells Spin of the new album, tentatively set to drop this spring. Vampire Weekend recorded 2010's Contra in a "window-less studio in downtown Brooklyn," with "it being cold and rainy all the time," stressed to the max-and that album ruled! So you can imagine we're suitably psyched to hear the writing process for the foursome's still-untitled third LP was a fresh, revitalizing experience.