Vampire Weekend are to release two songs a month in the run up to dropping their first album for six years.
The band’s frontman Ezra Koenig has confirmed the group’s hotly-anticipated fourth studio album will be a double record made up of 18 tracks, titled with the initials ‘FOTB’, and the band will drop six new songs over the next three months.
He wrote on Instagram: "we’re gonna start releasing music next week. After all that waiting, you should have the general schedule:
-There will be three 2-song drops every month until the record is out. 1. hh/2021 2. s/bb 3. tl/uw. (plans can change that’s the plan) (sic)"
Ezra thanked fans for their "patience", but insisted the group haven’t shared much information about the forthcoming record because he doesn’t like discussing a project before it is completed
He wrote: "To the fans:
I know that 5-6 years is considered a long time between records. Personally, I think it’s a dignified pace befitting a band that’s already placed three albums in stores but everyone has their own sense of time. (I swear the time between 3 & 4 felt shorter to me than 2 & 3. I may be in the minority on this one.)
This album didn’t really take any longer to write/record than MVOTC. We just took more time on the front end to chill. I’ll admit I may have stretched out the mixing/mastering process (aka THE END) a little bit cuz spending half the day with my family & half the day at Ariel’s is my ideal life-rhythm & it’s painful to say goodbye to that rhythm.
Many of you have been hungry for information and we’ve given you very little. I don’t like talking abt a project while in the middle of making it. I usually regret everything I say cuz it turns out to be wrong (so disregard anything I may have said in the past 5 years.) I thought abt making a recording diary to tide over the people leaving intense comments but…to me, the album IS the recording diary…man.
It’s called "FOTB" (well those are the initials – that’s a VW tradition) and it’s 18 songs. Picked the name a few years ago. At some point early on, the album drifted from the Mitsubishi Macchiato aesthetic. It was a helpful guiding principle tho. Working titles are important too.
It’s a lot of songs but they all belong there. (If you disagree, you can always say it was 6 songs too long & make a lil 12-song playlist version of it.) At first, I wanted to make two 23-song albums on some human chromosome shit but then 23&me started doing Spotify playlists and I don’t know…felt we’d been scooped.
Is it a double album? The vinyl will be double so…yes? It’s about 59 minutes long. We can talk more abt that later – if u care. To me, it’s just FOTB. (sic)"
In May, the band revealed their upcoming album – a follow up to 2013’s ‘Modern Vampires of the City’ – was "94.5 per cent" completed.
Vampire Weekend to release 6 new songs before new album
