Beirut: No No No

BEIRUT: NO NO NO (2015)

1) Gibraltar; 2) No No No; 3) At Once; 4) August Holland; 5) As Needed; 6) Perth; 7) Pacheco; 8) Fener; 9) So Allowed.

Well now, look at this. Four more years, and only nine more songs — No No No is even shorter than The Rip Tide, meaning that either Condon is at the end of his rope, or he is deliberately trying to convince us that less is more, and that any songwriter entrapped in a formula should at least try and cut down his production to a bare minimum (hear that, Mr. Springsteen?). Keeping in mind that this approach did not help The Rip Tide from being the same old cud, we should not set our expectations too high here — but, curiously, at least in my case these expectations have been pleasantly deceived.

As he himself acknowledged in interviews, Condon began writing this next album in a state of creative crisis — and eventually switched to a mini-format, jettisoning his large backing band in favor of a minimalistic piano trio. It seems that this actually helped him to concentrate more on the «melodic skeletons» of the tunes than on his usual East European atmospherics; and although the band was back for the final recording sessions, trombones and trumpets and accordions all in a row, most of the songs still have a transparently minimalistic sheen to them: the percussion and piano lines that open ʽGibraltarʼ are fairly typical of the entire record. Consequently, No No No sounds unmistakably like Beirut — and at the same time it gives us a fresh approach, «deconst­ructing» the classic Condon sound without spoiling it.

Some of these songs I would even warily define as «catchy», just because the simple, repetitive, distinctive keyboard lines (such as in ʽGibraltarʼ and ʽPerthʼ) stick in the brain faster than... well, anything Condon ever wrote before. But that's fine, it's really more of an attention spam problem than a sign of quality. What really matters is that this approach helps the man get some of that excessive quasi-Balkanian Weltschmerz out of his system, and the songs become cozier, prettier, more intimate, and intelligently optimistic — the lyrics seem like they were nonsensically thrown together out of a bunch of stock phrases from The Great Relationships Quotebook, but with the amount of air coming from Condon's nose, few people will make out the words anyway; more important is the effect of combining his high-pitched nasal singing with those skeletal acoustic and electric piano melodies, which, to me, sounds very pleasant (sort of a sunnier anti-thesis to the Thom Yorke vibe, if you wish).

Even without the vocals, the results can be nice: the instrumental ʽAs Neededʼ is a charming little piece of chamber pop, opened and closed with a gentle folksy acoustic riff and slightly Beach Boy-ish in the middle, with the strings forming a series of soothing musical waves against the relentless, but also soothing, hammering of the piano — a simple, but efficient example of the man's composing skills, so often remaining underappreciated behind the brass wall of sound. If, for some reason, you happen to be irritated by the man's voice (which is a distinct probability for all «crooner»-type singers), this is the only track off the record that you will need; fortunately for me, I can take it all, and twenty-nine minutes is precisely the maximum that can be intaken with­out the gag reflex setting in — because, after all, this is a set formula.

A thumbs up it is, even though it is not at all clear where we go from here. The man shows no signs of going back to the little shop of electronica, which is a good sign (there are some synthe­sizers on these tracks, but they are used sparingly and intelligently, like in the merry-go-round carousel intro to the title track); the man has thought of a good way to brush up on his melodic feel — by clearing away everything that is superfluous — which is an even better sign. But the man still retains his "earthy romantic" persona, which means that, most likely, sooner or later he will still return to the Gulag Orkestar mode of functioning, and whether he will manage to snap out of the predictable formula then remains, of course, an open question. In the meantime, all we can do is wish him some of that New Mexican good luck. 

Beirut: The Rip Tide

BEIRUT: THE RIP TIDE (2011)

1) A Candle's Fire; 2) Santa Fe; 3) East Harlem; 4) Goshen; 5) Payne's Bay; 6) The Rip Tide; 7) Vagabond; 8) The Peacock; 9) Port Of Call.

On Beirut's next offering, the electronics are mostly out, and it's a good sign. It shows that Con­don is smart enough to distinguish between what works and what doesn't work, and does not in­sist on jamming what doesn't work in his music, just because it's, like, what all them cool kids are doing these days. Why tamper with a formula that is already qualified as post-post-modernist, as it takes all these European folk traditions, fuses them together Santa Fe-style, and then demands that the author declare genuine heartfelt romantic love towards this fusion?

Thus, the nice Gulag Orkestar-style sound is back, as if nothing ever happened since then: trom­bones, trumpets, accordions, ukuleles, etc. The problem is, nothing really happens on The Rip Tide, either. It is 9 songs and 33 minutes of niceness — to my ears, completely unmemorable and completely non-innovative compared to Gulag Orkestar. These lazy rhythms, these majestic brass riffs, these Balkans-oriented vocal modulations, this lyrical attitude, we've all received our communion already. Where are the hooks, goddammit?

By putting 'Santa Fe' out as the lead single, Zack probably thought that he was doing his native city a big favor, but, being well acquainted with the city myself, I cannot imagine it adopting the song as its municipal anthem any time soon. For some reason, it is the only song on the record that still suffers a bit from the electronic disease (a bubbly, poisonous synth pattern acts as its rhythmic base), and, for some other reason, the anthemic chorus "sign me up, Santa Fe, and call your son" is nonchalantly mumbled through the nose rather than belted at the top of the lung­power (which this guy actually possesses in spades).

The rest of the songs, despite being purer in sound and smarter in design, still fail to register. I do not really understand what it is: there is no sense in blaming Condon for sticking to the same old tried and true, especially since he obviously does this well, and tinkering with the formula may only blow things up. It's just that, somehow, the formula got stale really, really quick. Where the sound used to be intriguing because it was so novel, now that the novelty factor has worn off, it simply becomes annoying.

Sometimes, in fact, I wish that the damn brass people would just go away and leave Condon to sing his melodies a cappella. 'Vagabond', for instance, or the first couple of minutes of 'Port Of Call', when it's just Zack and his guitar. But then all these musicians disrupt our privacy — and for what? To set up this band-of-gypsies vibe which doesn't even compare to a real band of gyp­sies. Perhaps it's not really the lack of melodic hooks that I am complaining about, but simply the lack of fire in this music. I mean, there's no use in concealing the platitude that most people are attrac­ted to Balkanian motives because of the reckless, crazy, all-out-wild atmosphere. The Rip Tide, in comparison, sounds stiff, cold, and artificial.

Or maybe it is the minimalist approach that irks me so much? A glowing review in Pitchfork put some emphasis on how the sound of Rip Tide is so stripped down, compared to how it used to be, and how there was «a newfound sense of restraint and stateliness on display here» — a phrase ty­pical of how little care we reviewers actually pay to what we are writing. In this case, not only because the «sense of restraint» and «sense of stateliness» are two entirely different things, and should not be joined together the way they were, but also because, even if you try real hard, it is fairly tough to imagine a «statelier» album coming out of Zach Condon's head than Gulag Or­kes­tar, so exactly how Rip Tide could boast a «newfound sense of stateliness» is way beyond me — unless, of course, the idea is that, earlier on, Condon had lost that sense somewhere on the road, and now, lo and behold, he's picked it up again. But shouldn't that be rendered with the word «recovered» rather than «newfound»?..

Well, never mind the linguistic games. Simply put, The Rip Tide, despite being so short, has ma­naged to bore me so much that, at this point, I am not sure I'd ever be interested in hearing a Bei­rut record again. Then again, it's not as if Gulag Orkestar shook me to my foundations, either; if, to you, it did manage to be an eye-opening experience, I'm pretty sure you'll love The Rip Tide as much as the general critical world pretended to love it. Me, I'm free to just go along with a firm thumbs down, knowing that no harm will be caused — with the major critical success that The Rip Tide has won, there are few chances that Zack will be reverting to electronics any time soon, and that is really what matters.

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Beirut: March Of The Zapotec / Holland

BEIRUT: MARCH OF THE ZAPOTEC / REALPEOPLE HOLLAND (2009)

CD I: 1) El Zócalo; 2) La Llorona; 3) My Wife; 4) The Akara; 5) On A Bayonet; 6) The Shrew; CD II: 1) My Night With The Prostitute From Marseilles; 2) My Wife, Lost In The Wild; 3) Venice; 4) The Concubine; 5) No Dice.

Condon's next predictably unpredictable move consisted of releasing a double EP whose first half sounds nothing like its second. For the first fifteen minutes, he is being accompanied by the 19-pi­ece Jimenez Band form the suburbs of Oaxaca, fusing Mexican talent with Balkan influences. For the second fifteen minutes, he changes his moniker to that of Realpeople, a pseudonym he had already used before the Beirut days, and experiments with electronic textures, testing how the same Balkan influences can be modeled in digital ways. ART!!

What is really reassuring is that Condon's feel for melody and taste for invention seem to have only increased and sharpened since his last album. Despite still being severely tied to waltz tem­pos, he makes great use of his Mexican troopers, and, for once, the melting pot approach really triggers an interesting cultural realization — namely, that Eastern European folk melancholy and Spanish desert-style romanticism have quite a bit of a common flavour. If 'La Llorona' (loosely dedicated to a traditional Mexican legend) is almost entirely Mexican in spirit, 'The Akara' alrea­dy tries to merge the traditions, and by the time 'The Shrew' comes along, I no longer know how to describe the whole thing.

It's a funny experience, to see Spaniards and Serbs shaking hands in such an oddly mediated man­ner. (Of course, once you get to the bottom of it, it's all about Gypsy power on both ends — which does not, however, make Condon's astute synthesis any less exci­ting). And, on top of that, both 'Llorona' and 'Akara' feature some of Zack's luverliest vocal melodies so far.

Feelings are generally mixed when it comes to the second part. On one hand, Holland is clearly the most innovative work that Condon produced since the basic sound of «Beirut» was establi­shed in the first place. On the other hand, it is hard to get rid of the thought that the lad may just be acting cool here, falling for the ridiculously all-permeating idea that any modern music that as­pires to be «modern» has to make use of electronic equipment. The melodies on Holland are of the usual solid quality, and at least one song, 'The Concubine', with its enchanted fairy-tale sound, might rank among Condon's finest. But couldn't it have sounded even better if the accordeons and chimes were augmented with real strings? I don't know. Actually, I do know: some of these tracks are occasionally performed by Zack's currently playing band without electronic background, and each instance of witnessing that has always seemed far more invigorating to me.

Certainly the last track on the EP, a crude dance-pop instrumental called 'No Dice', feels tremen­dously out of place here. As catchy as its main hook may be, it is still in the «dorky» ballpark, better fit for an arcade shooter soundtrack than for a legit Beirut album. I can only assume that it was a silly joke to test fan patience rather than, you know, «All of my life I've been dreaming...» etc. etc., the equivalent of suddenly being able to fulfill your dirtiest sexual fantasy. But, if any­thing, it just further confirms my belief that, in the future, Condon would do much better to stay away from synthesizers altogether. Now that we know that you can do it, Zack, how about getting back in touch with those Jimenez people?

Thumbs up, though, because, without 'No Dice', there is still thirty minutes of good music swim­ming around, and the whole thing is an excellent and original variation on the old style. Three more cheers for the synthetic approach.

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Beirut: The Flying Club Cup

BEIRUT: THE FLYING CLUB CUP (2007)

1) A Call To Arms; 2) Nantes; 3) A Sunday Smile; 4) Guaymas Sonora; 5) La Banlieue; 6) Cliquot; 7) The Penalty; 8) Forks And Knives (La Fête); 9) In The Mausoleum; 10) Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route); 11) Cherbourg; 12) St. Apollonia; 13) The Flying Club Cup.

One album and a few EPs into his career, «Beirut» goes west. Well, technically speaking, it is still east of New Mexico, but definitely west of the Balkans (where, as skeptical people tell me, Zachary Condon never actually set foot on his voyage of self-discovery): almost the whole album is ba­sed on the exotic country of France and its pictorially beautiful cities. The title is based on a suitably random bit of France-related trivia — a hot air balloon festival held in the early 1900's — and, totally true to the Santa Fe style, at least one song ('Guaymas, Sonora') deviates from the concept, being dedicated, mariachi-style, to Mexico, and the album cover, naturally, is an old photo shot of a Mexican beach. Putting a picture of a French paysage on an album paying tribute to French chanson? You'd call that true artistry? What are you, a Renaissance retrograde?...

And, of course, none of this sounds one bit like French chanson, despite all the accordeons and shit. Condon's travelog is well reflected in the lyrics, and his admiration for Jacques Brel, Fran­ce's biggest cultural export asset of the century, is also on record; but at the end of the day, The Flying Club Cup still ends up sounding like... Beirut. Listen to 'Cliquot': they sound like they're using this brass-accordeon punch to reproduce the structure of some old Celtic ballad from the deep depths of Condon's American subconscience. Bizarre.

Musically, the album's greatest advantage may be the smooth, but exuberant strings arrangements, courtesy of Owen Pallett who is mostly known as the orchestral mastermind behind Arcade Fire, but is also an accomplished solo artist in his own right; his waltzing intro to 'Forks And Knives' is my personal favourite moment on the whole record. But overall, despite the announced transition from the Dionysian wildness of Serbia to the Apollonic refinery of France, the changes in style are mostly cosmetic. Sonic texture and atmosphere still preside over hooks; Condon's vulnerably romantic, several-feet-above-the-ground vocals still bring to mind a shallower, more naïve and in­no­cent avatar of Andrew Bird; and the whole thing is still so damn cute and harmless that I do not understand how anyone could ever hate this kind of music (I think most of the hate letters in its address that I've seen were from silly people who actually expected it to sound like a collec­tion of French pop tunes circa 1920 or something).

One thing that is a little annoying is that most of the songs are taken at the same tempo, and way too many of them ('A Sunday Smile', 'Cliquot', 'Forks And Knives', 'Cherbourg') are waltzes — okay, folk mu­sic is not supposed to be diverse, but this is, after all, an advanced individual's processed take on folk music, and just how advanced can an individual be if he builds every third song of his upon the same POOM-cha-cha-POOM-cha-cha structure? (Let alone the fact that the nostalgia-tinted 'A Sunday Smile' may be the most sincerely moving tune on the album). I honestly do not en­dorse Condon's attitude towards rhythm; he seems to be too engulfed in the flow to flesh out the rhythmic work properly.

Still, by the time Condon leads us into the grand finale of the title track, he has, once more, con­vinced me that, in between the proverbially stale clichés of (and about) French folk culture and the grotesque, art-for-art's sake, meaningless concatenations of the «Santa Fe style», this whole thing is about the charismatic inner world of a sensitive young person, even if that world, in order to open up to strangers, requires to be fueled by completely random triggers. And so, once again, there may not be a whole lot of great music here, but there is sincerity — and intrigue — and that is enough to justify a friendly, if not ecstatic, thumbs up.

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Beirut: Gulag Orkestar

BEIRUT: GULAG ORKESTAR (2006)

1) Gulag Orkestar; 2) Prenzlauerberg; 3) Brandenburg; 4) Postcards From Italy; 5) Mount Wroclai (Idle Days); 6) Rhi­ne­land (Heartland); 7) Scenic World; 8) Bratislava; 9) The Bunker; 10) The Canals Of Our City; 11) After The Curtain.

Even if you have only just arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, without having spent an overall total of around two and a half years in it like I happened to have, you will immediately notice that the town thrives on kitsch. Being located almost equally far away from every civilized center in the world, it compensates by sucking in superficial cultural elements from each of them and regurgi­tating them in series of some of the most oddly, randomly, and — for tourists — excitedly juxta­posed sets of display cases in the world. You may spend all your life in Zia Country, never setting foot outside the domain of coyotes and cottontails, and still, through the power of ersatz, travel the globe, albeit mostly in an exoticized state of mind.

Granted, Zachary Francis Condon, who, based on all the sources I could find, was actually born in Santa Fe (a rarity, that — up to now, I thought people don't ever get born in Santa Fe, they just sort of materialize there from time to time), founded his band and wrote his music through the ac­tual experiences of travelling in Europe rather than pure ersatz; most, or maybe all, of the places mentioned on this LP are locations whose air the young prodigy has actually breathed in.

Still, why the heck am I not surprised that a band fronted by an American, consisting mostly of resi­dents of Santa Fe and Albuquerque, NM, calling itself Beirut (the one city that Zach admittedly never ever visited in person), releasing an album called GULAG (how do you sleep, Alexander Isayevich?) Orkestar (that's Croatian spelling, FYI), adorning it with a photo found in a Leipzig library, filling it with songs whose titles and lyrics travel from Germany to Slovakia to Italy, and playing them in a manner most reminiscent of Yugoslavian folk music — why am I not surprised that the whole thing keeps reminding me of that first visit to the Museum of Internatio­nal Folk Art on Santa Fe's Museum Hill, where the basic reaction was uncontrolled giggle: «so, which two cultures are going to shake the unshakable hands in the next display case?»

Nevertheless, even if the kitschy, predictably unpredictable «Santa Fe Style» mostly sucks (I mean, I am still fond of the place, but for entirely different reasons), the debut album of Beirut does not. It is not a masterpiece: the style is way too monotonous, and Condon's pop hook senses are seriously underdeveloped, or perhaps he is consciously trying to bury them. But neither is this simply an ecstatic declaration of the «ooh, look at me, I'm so advanced in my knowledge and in­fluences» kind, the perennial bane of indie music. Well, there certainly are elements of that, or else the guy wouldn't probably have included so many toponyms in the song titles (on the other hand, what a better way to make local kids interested in European geography?). Yet the basic motivation for Gulag Orkestar, (I want to believe), is quite different.

What we have here is a young impressionable artistic mind, smitten with the folk tradition of Eastern Europe and beset with the idea of describing its own experiences and feelings through the medium of that tradition. Much as I dislike quoting old man Christgau, he hit the nail on the head when writing that, in comparison to Condon's Yugoslavian influences — «contained chaos and wild drums» — Condon's own music is «irrepressible melodicism tempered by harmonic me­lancholy». Indeed; Condon borrows the superficial elements of Balkan music (the instrumenta­tion, mainly brass and accordeon, and the basic melodic structures) and, rather than using them to reproduce the reckless drunken debauchery of that tradition, adapts them as background for the retro-romantic yearnings of his own heart.

Of course, one could easily bring in field experts deriding us for the clichéd association of Balkan folk music with gypsies, bears, and frantic bop-till-you-drop dancing in the streets, and stating that Zachary Condon simply demonstrates a deeper, subtler understanding of that musical culture than any of us bloody tourists can ever hope to develop. Possibly, but I'd bet all of those field ex­perts' credentials would be fairly flimsy. Condon is a bloody tourist himself, and way too young and inexperienced (he was barely 20 years old upon the album's release, and his first close en­counters with the emulated musical tradition began when he was about 17) to gain a properly de­ep understanding of all those things; it is fairly obvious that he is doing his personal schtick, bor­rowing the formal trappings from another culture — much like the Kinks and the Beatles did their naïve imitations of the Indian vibe with 'See My Friends' and 'Norwegian Wood'.

But this is exactly what makes Gulag Orkestar worthy of your attention. The delicate mix of kitsch and sincerity. This is not some sort of lame tribute to Goran Bregović or Boban Marković, but an original creation that borrows elements of their music, originally used for an entirely diffe­rent purpose, to paint a sort of one-of-a-kind «An American In Eastern Europe» picture. And even if the songs, with their balalaikas, accordeons, trumpets, and what-not, all tend to merge to­gether after a short while (I only find 'Postcards From Italy', with its tender, friendly brass riff, to stand on its own as a truly memorable composition), the overall impression is lite-wond'rous.

Condon does not have much originality, but he's got taste: his lyrics are simple, but never flash­ing their clichéd nature, and his singing, admittedly inspired by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields yet also showing traces of Andrew Bird's influences (in fact, quite a few of these songs could ea­sily be passed off as obscure Bird outtakes), is impeccable on the grounds it covers. He also seems to have his feet planted steadily on the ground: there is sadness and loneliness all over this thing, but he never overplays it, drowning in mannerisms and pathos — it's loud, but still low-key and humble. In short — unmemorable, but charismatic.

I must warn you, though, that I really hated the record upon first listen. Not being a big fan of drunk Serbo-Croatian parties and Emir Kusturica in the first place, I was even more upset when it turned out that the songs were so flabby, dynamics-deprived, and hookless at that, and it took a few listens to understand it all contributed to making the experience worthwhile rather than incre­asing its ugliness. So beware: if you do like wild gypsy stuff, this is not wild gypsy stuff. It's not party music at all — it's a one-man project! «Beirut» does consist of several people when they're playing live, but in the studio, Condon overdubs most of the instruments all by himself. So Gulag Orkestar may just be one of the non-rowdiest albums ever to be recorded in a rowdy manner, and for that alone deserves a thumbs up.

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