While it may sound like an entire Balkan orchestra playing modern songs as mournful ballads and upbeat marches, Beirut’s first album, the startling Gulag Orkestar, was largely the work of one 19-year-old Albuquerque native, Zach Condon, and was almost completely recorded at home. Horns, violins, cellos, ukuleles, mandolins, glockenspiels, drums, tambourines, congas, organs, pianos, clarinets and accordions (no guitars!) all build and break the melodies under Condon’s deep-voiced crooner vocals, swaying to the Eastern European beats that sound like they’re being brought to you by a 12-member ensemble.
Condon was a straight-A student until he dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to travel Europe in a drunken haze, cavorting and partying with the locals wherever he ended up. It was during one of these evenings that he was first exposed to Balkan gypsy music (notably including the Boban Markovic Orchestra), blasting from the upstairs apartment. Condon went upstairs to see what exactly he was hearing, and ended up staying up all night with the Serbian artists, going through albums country by country, note for note. Gulag Orkestar is the direct result of what he learned that night.
Most of the tracks on Gulag Orkestar were recorded on Pro Tools while skipping school in Albuquerque, before Condon moved to Brooklyn and booked time at Sea Side Studios in Park Slope. He was joined by Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost of A Hawk and A Hacksaw, who added percussion over what was originally done with drum machines, and some beautiful violin overlays. The resulting record sounded like a Neutral Milk Hotel from behind The Iron Curtain, a glorious and emotional sweep of music both shocking in its emotional content as well as the astounding logistical feat of this having all been pulled off.
The album was revered worldwide, and yet in little less than a year and a half, and under a flood of public attention, Beirut released an additional EP (Lon Gisland) - and The Flying Club Cup, the second Beirut album. Within that short time, Condon had also constructed himself a band, and travelled with them as far afield as Russia, Poland and Turkey, proving himself as talented a bandleader as he is a composer, and collecting more inspirations for the Beirut sound.
The Lon Gisland EP was the first set of songs made with the live ensemble, and a further six months of recording led to The Flying Club Cup. Inspired by an obscure photo from 1910 depicting hot air balloons taking flight mere steps away from the Eiffel Tower - an image that Zach kept pasted to the wall throughout the sessions – the album is a homage to France's culture, fashion, history and music. In fact, each song is intended to evoke a different French city. Yes, two years before Condon was immersing himself in Balkan folk, absorbing those newly discovered sounds, scales and styles. But two years is a long time (an even longer time when you are 21 years old) and, having absorbed what he heard - the sonic joys of a skeletally structured, cacophonic ensemble - Zach moved West. He soaked up the music of Francois Hardy, Charles Aznavour and, most notably, Jacques Brel (a huge influence on Scott Walker and Mark E Smith, amongst many others), and polishing up his conversational French, especially during between-song-banter at shows. But although the album, like all of Beirut's music, radiates affection and nostalgia for the culture that inspired it, it was recorded far from its emotional epicentre.
Initial work was done to computer in a nondescript Albuquerque office space, otherwise known as the A Hawk and a Hacksaw practice room. Heather Trost played violin and viola on three songs. Engineering and production assistance came from Griffin Rodriguez (AHAAH, Man Man); his ability to distinguish instruments out of a sea of sound is unparalleled. He helped to define and focus the contributions of the many instrumentalists who were deeply involved in recording, the whole process very different from Gulag Orkestar's largely solo genesis. The orkestar, which had settled into a core group of eight total members, are now an integral part of Beirut's identity.
An opportunity to record in a real studio came via a friendship formed with multi-instrumentalist Owen Pallet, who records as Final Fantasy. Owen asked the band to play on an EP he was recording (to be released on Dead Oceans) and, in exchange, offered up some of his studio time. And so it was that Beirut got to record at the Masonic church studio owned by Arcade Fire, and even more excitingly, populated by their many obscure instruments. The initial plan - simply to add final touches to the songs - developed into something more ornate, as Pallet, whose skills as an arranger have adorned and enhanced dozens of records, added lush string sections and a spot of singing, too (on 'Cliquot').
So that was The Flying Club Cup, something more than a home recording but no less personal; something less than a studio album but no less professional; completely different from the first record but just as brilliant. Caught between the soaring spectacle of the instrumentation and the beautiful intimacy of the songs, you can hear a love letter - a heady missive to the joie de vivre that lights up our existence. Listen closer, and you also hear the further emergence of a singular musical talent - Mr Zachary F Condon - an artist unbounded by cultural borders and led wherever his heart travels.