Reviews: Beirut – The Flying Club Cup (2007)
Beirut’s music is created mostly by Zac Condon, a 22 year-old from Santa Fe, who could have easily come straight out of early 20th century Europe. Condon was a straight-A student who wrote electronic music until he dropped out of school at 16 to ramble drunkenly across Europe. There, he heard Balkan gypsy music and fell in love with European folk, country by country.
In The Flying Club Cup, Beirut’s second album, he pays homage to the French chanson, its fashion, and its history. Samples from French radio and television are scattered throughout, as well as are accordions, organs, timpani, congas, glockenspiels, mandolins, violas, clarinets, horns and more; guitars do not feature.
The album begins with “Nantes,” with an organ and accordion introducing the vast and varied percussion employed throughout the album before segueing into the waltz “A Sunday Smile.” The album features raucous choruses alongside soothing folk and classical compositions. Yet the album’s arrangement remains near flawless. Having been composed mostly in a musical practice room and recorded in The Arcade Fire’s Masonic church studio, the album’s intricacy and authenticity surmounts both the age and experience of its composer – the mark of a true musical genius.
Recent Comments