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Friday 6th April 2012
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On Our iPod

Golden Grrrls - New Pop 7”

Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital (album)

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester (album)

Throwing Up - Mother Knows Best 7”

Howling Wolf - Complete Chess Masters 1951-60

The Ketamines - A Rotten Bond/1 Yr (from Oddbox Singles Club Pt 2)

Cardinal - Hymns (album)

Proper Ornaments - Taking the Gamble Out of Buying 12”

Darren Hayman - January Songs (album)

Various: Marshall Teller EP 12”

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Album Review

Beirut
The Flying Club Cup 4AD

Article written by Ged M - Oct 22, 2007

Just like Gulag Orkestar was Balkans-inspired music seen through an American indie music prism, The Flying Club Cup is a French-inspired record by American musicians and no less mesmerising than the debut. Everything has the flavour of France, from the album title that comes from a photograph of hot air balloons floating past the Eiffel Tower in 1910, to song titles, each of which is meant to evoke a different French city, to Zach Condon’s primary inspiration, the French art of chanson, and especially great singers like Jacques Brel, George Brassens and Charles Aznavour. Condon’s voice is much stronger now, as on ‘Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)’ where he sounds much older than his 21 years but he avoids trying to mimic the French singers whose delivery was rooted in age and sorrow.

Beirut is now a band and the ensemble playing on parts of this album is just breathtaking. It’s beautifully arranged and recorded; Owen Pallett (Arcade Fire and Final Fantasy) contributes great flourishes of strings while engineer Griffin Rodriguez has ensured that every instrument is allowed to shine audibly. The result is a fine sounding record, full of accordions, mariachi trumpets playing against sweeping strings (‘Cliquot’) and mandolins sparking mournfully (‘The Penalty’), capturing characteristic French moods of joy and sadness in a single song. The song that plays against type is the cabaret-style ‘In The Mausoleum’ where oriental-sounding strings soar while a jazzy riff repeats on a piano. ‘A Sunday Smile’ (the first single) sums it up: a wonderful pot-pourri of carnival pipe organ, trumpets, strings and a waltz-time rhythm back the singer’s mood of intimate sadness.

It’s another striking Beirut record, a product of inspiration and interpretation rather than imitation, and a proof of where a good ear and open mind can take you.

Links:
http://www.myspace.com/beirut