We met up with Ezra and Chris of Vampire Weekend to ask the guys about Contra, the highly (to put it lightly) anticipated follow up to their debut album. On the process of recording Contra, Ezra explains “We weren’t writing full songs on the road, but we were certainly gathering up ideas”. Vampire Weekend had twelve songs in mind for Contra but eventually distilled those down to ten worth pursuing. “For us, song writing and arranging and production are all tied up into one big process”, he continued.

On their music video for Cousins, the second single off Contra, Chris tells us that the idea was to capture the speed and motion of the decidedly repetitive song. The video for Cousins was shot in downtown Manhattan, near Chinatown.

Contra will be out January 12th, 2010 on XL Recordings.