Rostam

Born in Washington D.C. in 1983 into an Iranian family, Rostam Batmanglij first drew attention as a composer, arranger and producer with the New York band Vampire Weekend, to which he brought a blend of indie rock, chamber pop and electronic influences. Based in New York and later Los Angeles, Rostam developed in parallel his solo project under the name Rostam, where he pushed a musical language between indie pop, art pop and electronic experimentation further, with a marked taste for detailed orchestrations, layered vocals and fragmented rhythms. After leaving Vampire Weekend in 2016 to focus on writing and production, Rostam released the solo album Half-Light in 2017 and Changephobia in 2021 — two records that combine introspective ballads, string-arranged pop and more synthetic tracks. Very active as a producer and co-writer, Rostam has worked on albums by Clairo, Haim and Hamilton Leithauser, for whom he co-wrote the 2016 album I Had a Dream That You Were Mine. Whether under his own name or in collaboration, Rostam thus builds a body of work centered on the song, where indie pop is nourished by sophisticated harmonies and subtle electronic textures.