Washington, DC · indie pop · chamber pop

Rostam

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Ex-Vampire Weekend architect — ornate, warm-blooded pop as producer-auteur, harpsichords and 808s on equal footing, fingerprints all over a decade of indie.

Rostam Batmanglij was born in 1983 to Iranian parents who had just arrived in Washington, DC. His mother, Najmieh Batmanglij, is a cookbook author and his father a publisher; his brother, Zal Batmanglij, is a filmmaker. He grew up in the city and studied music at Columbia University, teaching himself production by recreating recordings he admired.

He joined Vampire Weekend in 2006 as a founding member, at first its sole producer. He recorded the band's debut shortly after graduating while working several jobs, then Contra, which sold over 120,000 copies in its first week and reached number one on the Billboard 200 when he was 26.

He played guitar and keyboard, sang, and co-wrote songs including "Diplomat's Son," with Ezra Koenig later calling the two of them the group's main songwriters. Modern Vampires of the City, from 2013, was the first record he produced with a partner, Ariel Rechtshaid, rather than alone. He left the band in January 2016, saying he would keep collaborating with Koenig.

As one half of Discovery, his project with Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles, he released the album LP through XL Recordings in 2009, with guest vocals from Koenig and Dirty Projectors' Angel Deradoorian. He has also produced for Haim, Clairo, Carly Rae Jepsen and Hamilton Leithauser, making the collaborative album "I Had a Dream That You Were Mine" with the latter.

His own records, "Half-Light" and "Changephobia," combine strings, harpsichord and Persian classical influences with programmed drums and loose, conversational singing, and he handles most of the arranging and engineering himself. He has three Grammy nominations, winning Best Alternative Music Album for Modern Vampires of the City and receiving an Album of the Year nod as producer of Haim's Women in Music Pt. III.

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indie popchamber pop