Beirut
Gulag Orkestar

A Norman Records recommendation (19th November 2008)

This record left our Phil feeling ecstatic.

Lordy it's good! Imagine Black Ox Orkestar crossed with Radiohead with a dash of Leonard Cohen and some Eastern European Carnival music. It's fantastic. I can't get the words across about how great all of us think this is. There's not many occasions when we all love something but this is one of those rare things I've just been implying doesn't happen very much. Incredibly the guy who makes this music is only 19. I was shocked..... so accomplished and intelligent sounding for a 19 year old. When I was 19 I still had to get help with toilet things...... Anyway this isn't gonna be everyone's bag but if the above sound interesting check it out cos it's well bum. Before David Byrne gets his hands on him anyway....

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What their label says...

While it may sound like an entire Balkan gypsy orchestra playing modern songs as mournful ballads and upbeat marches, Beirut's first album, Gulag Orkestar, is largely the work of one 19-year-old Albuquerque native, Zach Condon, with assistance by Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw). Horns, violins, cellos, ukuleles, mandolins, glockenspiels, drums, tambourines, congas, organs, pianos, clarinets and accordions (no guitars on this album!) all build and break the melodies under Condon's deep-voiced crooner vocals, swaying to the Eastern European beats like a drunken 12-member ensemble that has fallen in love with The Magnetic Fields, Talking Heads and Neutral Milk Hotel.

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