Is Contra actually Vampire Weekends electronic albium?
Ezra: One of the first songs we worked on was “White Sky,” which was based on a beat that Rostam made that’s totally electronic. But, in fact, after that, I said, I don’t want this to be our electronic album. Just as there are some of our most electronic songs on there, there are also some of our most rocking songs, with no electronics. Every album is an opportunity to show something different. Using electronic drum sounds, synths — that’s not a trend, that’s a part of music-making. Just like you have your guitar, you have the 808 drum machine. It’s a canonized part of the studio. It extends the texture, in the same way the cello can do. Rostam: What’s really interesting about these drum machines is that they’re actually synthesized — they’re using math to create the sound of a clap. That was a sound I was initially repulsed by, I just thought it sounded so cheap and small, so I actually wanted to push myself to embrace this thing that I didn’t like, and try to make it exciting to me.
