While it may sound like an entire Balkan gypsy orchestra playing modern songs as mournful ballads and upbeat marches, Beirut's first album, Gulag Orkestar , is actually the work of 19-year-old Albuquerque native Zach Condon, with an assist from Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw). There are no guitars on this album; instead, horns, violins, cellos, ukuleles, mandolins, glockenspiel, drums, tambourines, congas, organs, pianos, clarinets and accordions all build and break around C   [ read more ]

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Six months of recording has led to The Flying Club Cup, an homage to Frances culture, fashion, history, and music. Two years ago, Zach Condon immersed himself in Balkan folk, absorbed sounds, scales, styles, and the sonic joys of a skeletally structured, cacophonic ensemble--and moved west, soaking up the likes of François Hardy, Charles Aznavour, and, most notably, Jacques Brel (a huge influence on both Scott Walker and Mark E. Smith), Condon has been articulating his conversational French. [ read more ]

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Insound Staff Pick - 2009! With no sense of a release in mind, bandleader Zach Condon recorded in any style that struck his fancy. Some early discussions about recording material for a film being shot in Mexico morphed into a new idea: What about finding a local band in a small city in Mexico, hiring them to play some new material, and recording the result? It was a sincere challenge every step of the way. Condon had to find the band, which he did through a bandmate's mother who has connections in Oa   [ read more ]

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The sleeper hit of 2006, Beirut's Gulag Orkestar came out of nowhere to sell tens of thousands of copies in a matter of months and wound up on countless critics' year-end lists. As a stopgap before recording a new full-length in Fall 2007 -- and as a way to capture some current songs being performed at shows -- the eight-member band checked into Sea Side Studios in Brooklyn to record Lon Gisland. These are the first studio recordings made by the entire group, and a sampling of the    [ read more ]

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