Rostam Batmanglij Debuts Two New Songs, “Gwan” and “Sick As A Dog”

Rostam Batmanglij, better known just as Rostam, and a former member of Columbia University-born four-piece indie rock band Vampire Weekend, premiered two new songs on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic show today. Beyond discussing his work as a newly minted solo artist and what the future holds for Vampire Weekend, Batmanglij debuted the songs “Gwan,” an orchestral solo effort, and “Sick As A Dog,” a selection from a forthcoming collaborative album titled I Had A Dream That You Were Mine with the ex-frontman of The Walkmen, Hamilton Leithauser.

Batmanglij generated headlines this past January when he departed Vampire Weekend, also made up of frontman Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio and Chris Tomson, of which he had been a member since its inception in 2006. With Rostam, Vampire Weekend released three full-length albums, all of which garnered critical acclaim and the most recent of which, Modern Vampires of the City, earned the group a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. The singer and multi-instrumentalist has since embarked on a series of solo projects, including the Hamilton Leithauser collaboration. Despite leaving Vampire Weekend in his past, Batmanglij isn’t opposed to the idea of working with them again in the future, which he commented on during his KCRW appearance: “There are no clear lines drawn about what the future holds. For me, it meant [being] open to doing stuff with Vampire Weekend, open to doing stuff on my own, to doing stuff with other people. There’s something really lovely about that openness.”

Check out Rostam’s interview in full below, as well as “Gwan” (which starts at 13:15) and “Sick As A Dog” (which starts at 31:14), right here.