Vampire Weekend will release a double album this year – with new music dropping next week

Three batches of songs will be shared in the run up to its release

Vampire Weekend have revealed that their forthcoming record will be an 18-song double album, with the first two songs released next week.

Frontman Ezra Koenig announced on Instagram today (January 17) that the band plans to release “three 2-song drops every month until the record is out,” starting next week.

The New York group’s first album in nearly five years is no longer titled ‘Mitsubishi Macchiato’, Koenig wrote, but is instead comprised of the initials “FOTB” with an exact title to be announced at a later date.

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Koenig also included what are presumably the initials of the songs that are being shared over the next three months: “1. hh/2021″ 2. “s/bb” 3. “tl/uw.”

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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.⁣ ⁣ Anyway, 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)⁣ ⁣ Thank you for ur patience,⁣ Ezra

A post shared by Ezra Koenig (@arze) on

In the post, Koenig wrote: “This album didn’t really take any longer to write/record than MVOTC [‘Modern Vampires Of The City’]. 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 [Rechtshaidis – the band’s producer] my ideal life-rhythm & it’s painful to say goodbye to that rhythm.⁣

Lollapalooza
CHICAGO, IL – AUGUST 04: Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend performs at Lollapalooza 2018 at Grant Park on August 4, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Josh Brasted/FilmMagic)

He continued: “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.⁣”

Although the band hasn’t confirmed a release date for ‘FOTB’, our calculations from Koenig’s song batch schedule point to a date sometime in March or April. However, a representative for the band has told Spin that there is no release date yet.

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‘FOTB’ marks Vampire Weekend’s first album without founding member Rostam Batmanglij, who left the band in 2016. He said in a note at the time of his departure, “My identity as a songwriter and producer, I realized, needs to stand on its own.”

Meanwhile, the band’s label boss said in December 2018 that ‘FOTB’ “will be your favourite record next year”.

Columbia Records’ Ferdy Unger-Hamilton told Music Week: “The record’s brilliant, it’s going to go really well” before mentioning that the band will “do some shows.”

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