“In A Black Out” by Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam, from their debut album, I Had A Dream That You Were Mine (due out September 23rd via Glassnote Records).
“In the spirit of collaborations, not unlike those of David Byrne and Brian Eno, each musician’s individuality remains in tact, while in fact, both Hamilton’s identity as a singer and Rostam’s as a producer seem to reach new heights”.
“A 1000 Times” started with a beat I made while Hamilton and I were working out of my studio in LA. We picked it back up in New York and finished writing it in Washington, DC. I wanted us to do a song where the snares would crack as hard as Hamilton’s voice. To me, the song became about that interaction between the vocals and the drums. – Rostam
“On that first trip we got so much more done than the 1-2 tracks we’d talked about…we had big parts of maybe 5-6 songs. We knew we liked it all, but we hadn’t discussed the amount we wanted to make together. It was kind of a funny moment…like a ‘how far are we taking this relationship?’ kind of thing. I don’t think we made a decision until a few months later, when our next session went well again. At that point it was definitely going to be a lot more than a few tracks on my next solo record.” – Hamilton Leithauser
Well, the Walkmen may be on hiatus, but at least we’re getting new music from their members. Here’s “Alexandra” from frontman Hamilton Leithauser off his debut solo LP Black Hours (out in May). The record features contributions from Amber Coffman (Dirty Projectors), Richard Swift (The Shins), Morgen Henderson (Fleet Foxes), The Walkmen’s own Paul Maroon and Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij (who also appears on this song and in this video).