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Jan 26, 2016 By Christopher Roberts Vampire Weekend

Rostam Batmanglij has announced today via Twitter that he has left Vampire Weekend. The multi-instrumentalist was a founding member of the band but has also been actively involved in other projects, such as producing Ra Ra Riot’s latest album and Discovery, his side-project with Ra Ra Riot vocalist Wes Miles. Batmanglij has also just released a new solo single entitled “EOS” (put out simply under his last name). In his statement he promises to still collaborate with Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig. Koenig has also responded via an Instagram post. Both statements are below, followed by “EOS.”

pic.twitter.com/fYqZtwYkCU

— Rostam Batmanglij (@matsoR) January 26, 2016

on a serious tip: I don’t like the word “quit”, I don’t know how people could take that away from my statement, feels unfair

— Rostam Batmanglij (@matsoR) January 26, 2016

A couple years ago, Rostam and I sat down at his house & talked abt whether our collaboration was dependent on being members of the same band. We both firmly agreed that nope, it was not. In fact, we agreed that our collaboration was more important. I’m psyched about the work we’ve already begun for LP4 and I’m psyched to hear anything else Rostam is a part of. Also very excited to continue playing music with CT and Baio but there will be plenty of time to talk about that later in the year. For now in the Vampire Weekend universe, it’s all about recording the next album. There will be a lot of familiar faces in the studio but also some fresh, new ones. Working title is “Mitsubishi Macchiato”...for obvious reasons. Shout-out to the fans who have been waiting for new music - it’s coming. ???????????????????????? Also tomorrow, we gotta talk abt Iowa.

A photo posted by Ezra Koenig (@arze) on Jan 26, 2016 at 2:51pm PST