Pitchfork

New York's Vampire Weekend come from a minimal guitar pop tradition that stretches from Young Marble Giants to the Whitest Boy Alive, but their approach is more matter-of-fact and less self-consciously arty while taking on new wave from a different angle. "This feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel, too," sings Ezra Koenig on "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", the first track from their self-titled EP. Hard to say what he's talking about with the lyric, but the track's instrumentation and bubbly beat evoke another baby boomer songwriter who spent the 80s exploring what was just starting to be called "world music." Paul Simon's Graceland (and the African pop that inspired it) is perhaps an odd touchstone for a small indie rock band releasing music on their own label, but "Cape Cod" transforms the buoyant spirit of "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" to a cheaply (but cleanly) recorded, stripped-down, no-fuss context. Musicians of Simon's generation call recordings this simple "demos," and they have a point; but something about the unassuming nature of the production works in Vampire Weekend's favor, allowing subtle pleasures like that sunny falsetto vocalese at the end and the purity of the guitar tone to shine through.