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Eclectic indie rock and pop collective
Beirut have combined styles ranging from the pre-rock vocal era and Eastern European Gypsy music to plaintive and whimsical indie folk with lo-fi psychedelic experimentations. The brainchild of American multi-instrumentalist
Zach Condon, the project debuted in 2006 with
Gulag Orkestar. After refining their sound over the next few albums while retaining a broad musical base,
Beirut's fourth album, 2015's
No No No, became their first effort to reach the Top 50 of the Billboard 200. The band continued to find success both at home and abroad on subsequent wide-ranging outings,
Gallipoli (2019) and
Artifacts (2022).
Counting
the Magnetic Fields and
the Smiths among his influences, New Mexico native
Zach Condon began making D.I.Y. bedroom recordings in his early teens. After dropping out of high school, he traveled across Europe, in the process becoming exposed to the Balkan brass music that would be at the heart of his
Beirut debut. Back home in Albuquerque,
Condon briefly enrolled at the University of New Mexico, studying photography and Portuguese before setting off to Europe again. He eventually crossed paths with fellow New Mexican
Jeremy Barnes, a former member of
Neutral Milk Hotel whose own albums as
A Hawk and a Hacksaw shared similar ethnographic interests with
Condon's material. With the help of
Barnes and his
A Hawk and a Hacksaw partner,
Heather Trost,
Condon recorded the songs that would make up
Gulag Orkestar largely on his own, playing accordion, keyboards, saxophone, clarinet, mandolin, ukulele, horns, glockenspiel, and percussion alongside
Barnes' drums and
Trost's cello and violin.
After
Barnes gave an early version of the album to Ba Da Bing! Records label head Ben Goldberg, the newly christened band
Beirut was signed to the label.
Condon moved from Albuquerque to Brooklyn, where he put together a shifting collective of part-time bandmembers along the lines of
Broken Social Scene for live performances. Following the release of
Gulag Orkestar in May 2006, critical praise spread from small blogs to mainstream media outlets. The EP
Lon Gisland followed in 2007, leading up to the full-length
The Flying Club Cup later that year. That album marked
Beirut's debut in the Billboard 200, reaching number 118.
In 2009,
Beirut released the double-EP
March of the Zapotec/Holland. The latter featured six electronic tracks recorded at home under the pseudonym
Realpeople, while the former included six tracks recorded in Oaxaca, Mexico with the Jimenez Band, a 19-piece group from Teotitlán del Valle. It cracked the Top 100, as did the full-length
Rip Tide, issued in 2011 via
Condon's own Pompeii Records label.
Beirut then signed with 4AD, which released
No No No in 2015. Inspired in part by health issues and divorce,
No No No became
Beirut's highest-charting album to date, reaching number 46 on the Billboard 200 and the Top Ten of the alternative chart. Still showing signs of influence from Balkan brass music,
Condon returned with
Beirut's fifth LP,
Gallipoli, in 2019. Co-produced by
No No No's
Gabe Wax, it was recorded in Puglia, Italy, New York City, and
Condon's adopted base of Berlin, Germany. 2022 saw the release of the career-spanning
Artifacts, a double LP featuring unreleased tracks, B-sides, and a handful of
Condon's earliest recordings, as well as a re-release of the band's 2007
Lon Gisland EP. ~ Stewart Mason & Marcy Donelson