May 4 - RAC & Rostam

I've got a few minutes to kill before checking out and going to catch my bus to my last site visit of this vacation. I'm going to a place called Klis, which is this ridiculous mountaintop fortress, which also doubles as Mereen. So I only have about 10 minutes so wont' go into the details of the trip, but let's just say that Dubrovnik is absolutely gorgeous, but 2 days is definitely enough time to see it. And Split is totally unique and amazing. Overall, Croatia may be in my Top 5 European countries. I think I need to look at a map before I can definitely say if that's true, but I think it is. The problem is there's a lot of places in Europe where I've been to like one city that I love, but not much more of the country. Or places like France, where I went around France 15 years ago, but since then only to Paris, and I love Paris, but not sure if I can place the country at the top just based on Paris and vague memories? Anyway, the point is: this little corner of Croatia is amazing.

Ok, now for some quick music, today all centered around Rostam. I've written about Rostam before. He's an ex-member of Vampire Weekend, and I think his stuff is generally better than their stuff. Even though he's only put out like 4 singles ever, in like a 4 year period. But they're all great. And he's got a new one called Gwan, which is also great. Maybe this means an album is coming finally? Who knows.

Even though Rostam has only released a few of his own songs, he's been very busy elsewhere since leaving Vampire Weekend. He's been producing a lot and featured on a bunch of stuff, including a full album that he and Hamilton Leithauser put out together last year, which had a couple of good tracks. And he's now featured on RAC's newest single. I've also written about RAC, another producer who I really enjoy. Started out making some pretty great remixes, put out his own album with all kinds of great featured artists, and now he's prepping for a new album, from which This Song is the first single. I enjoyed it straight off, but it took me a couple of listens to really like it. I think it was the little "Whoo!" before the chorus that I really like, for some strange reason.