Beirut

About

Beirut is the project of Zach Condon, a singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist from Santa Fe, New Mexico, who built something genuinely unusual out of indie folk, Balkan brass, French chanson and chamber pop. The name nods to Beirut as a place where cultures collide, which is a pretty accurate description of the sound. Early albums like Gulag Orkestar and The Flying Club Cup drew heavily on Eastern European folk and Francophone influences, with Condon citing Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg and Yves Montand as touchstones, while a rotating cast of brass players gave the live shows a full, almost orchestral weight. By The Rip Tide in 2011, the project had found its own centre of gravity, a more pop oriented sound that critics noted felt distinctly and uniquely Beirut. No No No followed in 2015 after a turbulent period for Condon, and Gallipoli arrived in 2019. The most recent album, Hadsel from 2023, saw Condon travel to a church in the Norwegian village of Hadsel to record using its organ, a typically restless creative move for someone who has always let geography shape the music.