Review: Beirut – March of the Zapotec
Beirut: March of the Zapotec
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I first heard of Beirut in an interview on NPR in which mastermind Zach Condon was explaining that he’s too young to write songs about his own personal experiences, so he makes up characters with lives more interesting than his and channels them for inspiration. Perhaps it’s that approach that allows for the eccentricity and whimsy found throughout Beirut’s catalog. Upon hearing the NPR interview I picked up 2007’s Flying Club Cup, and it thrills me still. Statements on Beirut’s website have made the group’s future frightfully unclear, so the release of the March of the Zapotec EP made me happy.
For this release, Condon has made a split EP with himself. The first half as Beirut, entitled March of the Zapotec, the second as the more electric (but no less eclectic) Realpeople, entitled Holland. Throughout the EP, Condon’s voice is strong and distinctive; it soars, not unlike Rufus Wainwright, and weaves through the style-spanning music.
The first half of the eleven-track EP appropriately continues the development of Beirut’s style. A band named after a city in Lebanon blends authentic Mexican brass band sounds with French-sounding accordion waltzes and old-world instrumentation: mandolin, rope drums, tambourines and shakers. The combination is oddly charming yet inimitable; it’s like eating empanadas with a glass of pinot noir, or chasing a tequila shot with a bite of a fruit-filled croustade.
The timbre of Condon’s voice has always matched the other-worldliness of Beirut perfectly, I thought, so I was interested to see how it might fit into the more electronic setting of Realpeople. Although I thoroughly enjoy the Realpeople half of the EP, the tracks make it evident that Beirut’s sound is just as much about Zach Condon’s voice and delivery as the instrumentation. Of the five Realpeople tracks, only two are a real distinct departure from the Beirut sound. “My Night with the Prostitue from Marseille” and instrumental “No Dice,” the EP’s opener and closer respectively, have a dancy feel, with a blippy synth arpeggiated accompaniment throughout. The middle three Realpeople tracks sound like the Beirut Condon is truly collaborating with an alter ego, blending the accordions and vibrato’d horn ensembles with synths, drum machines, and more up-front production.
This EP goes to show that the future of the 23-year-old Zach Condon is going to be brilliantly diverse. For fans of Beirut, the March of the Zapotec half is a nice little gift of six new tracks, while the Realpeople half is the Death Cab For Cutie fan’s Postal Service.
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