After capping off 2020 with their celebratory Goosemas livestream, Goose’s 2021 started with a bang. Vampire Weekend enlisted them— along with saxophonist Sam Gendel— to create a new version of “2021,” the shortest song on Vampire Weekend’s 2019 record, Father of the Bride, which clocks in at a tight 1:38. The catch? Their creation had to run for 20 minutes and 21 seconds. The two tracks were released as the 40:42 EP earlier this year.
The last time Vampire Weekend was featured in the pages of Relix, Ezra Koenig discussed the then-new FotB and how it was partially inspired by his roots in the “jam-adjacent” world. Koenig attended shows at New York’s Wetlands and covered Greyboy Allstars tunes in a high-school band, and, by virtue of growing up in the East Coast town of Glen Ridge, N.J., the music of the Grateful Dead, Phish and other improvisational bands percolated into his head.
