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Gulag Orkestar

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Beirut

 
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Gulag Orkestar
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Avg: 4.5 (681 ratings)

The best indie-rock record of the 19th century

  • We Say...

    Review by Yancey Strickler

    For some, nothing is more bewildering than the present. Forget the future — for it will forget you — it's the routine of modernity that terrifies, sending us wistfully toward a non-existent past, nostalgic for a life that the cruelty of time prevented. To experience this later in life is understandable, but to be afflicted at the age of 19, like Beirut's Zach Condon, borders on criminal. And yet from this alienation arises Gulag Orkestrar, in my view one of the finest albums of 2006 thus far and one seemingly ready-made for the indie canon.

    Backed by Jeremy Barnes, currently of A Hack and a Hacksaw and formerly the drummer for Neutral Milk Hotel, Condon strolls through Gulag Orkestrar's multi-instrumental estates with a certainty that could only come at such a tender age. Condon writes morose, quasi-baroque ballads that he arranges like Eastern European folk songs: accordion, multi-layered percussion rhythms, muted horns and numerous wordless syllables howled in protest toward the Balkan winds.

    Neutral Milk Hotel's epochal In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is an obvious signpost, as is the mid-crescendo abruptness of Arcade Fire and the Luddite-rock of Tom Waits. But in its preciousness, Beirut ventures into territories more self-consciously traditional — the gypsy street march of "Bratislava," the opening title track, the arrangements in general — and, in an unlikely feat, immediate. There is an arrestingly soft beauty in the mourning horns of "The Canals of Our City" that renders classification gauche and denies self-consciousness. The song exists so that we need not consider why.

    The same is true of "Postcards from Italy," which is looking like a staple of my mixtapes for years to come. Here Condon most succinctly bridges his affection for the old immigrant songs and the indie-rock world whence he has come. His voice phonograph-distant, Condon alluringly drawls melancholy over clap-trap rhythms and a simple ukulele jaunt of love and loss, honest topics for any era. But as much as "Postcards" stands out, it's just one amazing song of 11. Gulag Orkestrar is the best indie-rock record of the 19th century.

  • They Say...

    Review by Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

    The best album to come out of Albuquerque since the Shins decamped for the Pacific Northwest, the debut album by Beirut (aka New Mexico-born 19-year-old singer/songwriter Zach Condon) bears an immediate resemblance both to Denver's DeVotchKa and the current passions of the Athens, GA, crowd formerly associated with the Elephant 6 stable. Like DeVotchKa, Condon is heavily influenced by Eastern European folk music and, to a lesser extent, the mariachi trumpets and Latin rhythms of the desert Southwest: the songs on Gulag Orkestar are lousy with mandolins and similarly plinky members of the string instrument family, accordions, horns, and hand percussion clearly played with dramatic in-studio arm flourishes. But like the Athens folks (some of whom appear here in a supporting role, most notably A Hawk and a Hacksaw's Jeremy Barnes), Condon isn't interested in mere approximations of traditional forms. Condon and friends use the folk instruments primarily as really cool-sounding textures, exotic backdrops for Condon's melodic indie folk tunes and impressionistic lyrics. The lyrics, it must be said, are the album's most obvious flaw, clearly the work of a young, romantically inclined teen who has never been to Europe but has seen a lot of foreign art films about, like, Gypsies 'n' stuff. Ignore the clunky lyrics -- easy enough to do since Condon is an unexpectedly appealing singer with a rich, mellifluous voice that, no kidding, recalls the great bel canto crooners of the pre-rock era (along with a little Nick Cave) -- and Gulag Orkestar is an infinitely more appealing album.

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