Vampire Weekend are “close” to finishing an album inspired by the Indian classical music framework, Raga.
Drummer Chris Tomson has revealed frontman Ezra Koenig had Raga singing lessons and it inspired the 10 tracks on the upcoming follow-up to 2019’s ‘Father of the Bride’, which he boasts are their “best yet”.
In a newsletter, Chris wrote: “Ezra [Koenig] took a raga singing lesson with Terry Riley in rural Japan and wrote what he considers to be 7 of his all-time top 10 best songs.”
He continued: “I personally found an immense peace and pleasure from creating with the guys like we had in the Ruggles days. The vibe was strong.”
Chris added: “I feel like it just might be our best yet. 10 songs, no skips.”
The group are also treating fans to live albums released on vinyl only, starting with the sell-out ‘Frog On The Bass Drum Vol. 01 Live In Indianapolis’.
In 2021, Ezra revealed the indie band recorded new music in England and Los Angeles for a new record.
Speaking to Mark Hoppus on his Apple Music Hits show, Ezra said of the time between the release of their last record and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their music-making: “It is crazy that it’s been three years.
“I mean, about a year and a half of it doesn’t count because of COVID.
“But, yeah. We’ve been working on music and we were just recording in England for a while, now back in LA, working with everybody and, yeah, I think we’re … I’m always hesitant to… Sometimes I oversell how close we are with the record because who really knows? But we almost have an album’s worth of songs.”
The rocker – who featured on Liam Gallagher’s song ‘Moscow Rules’ last year – admitted that while they have plenty of new material in the works, he was unable to offer up a release date they are aiming for, because “you could tinker with a song forever.”
He added: “As you well know, you could tinker with a song forever; change the arrangement, change the lyrics, whatever.
“But in that sense we’re close. I have no idea how long it’ll take to finish, but we’re feeling really good about the new material. So yeah, a lot of studio time to come after the holidays.”
The group’s last LP was the first without multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, as he couldn’t commit to the group.