Beirut (the city).At times nostalgia can possess you even if it's a nostalgia for a place or time you've never known. When I listen to Beirut I feel an intense yearning for an Eastern Europe of my imagination, painted in the faded colors of an old Polaroid snapshot.
Beirut is basically one guy, Zach Condon, who writes the music, sings, and plays trumpet and ukulele. He's very young, only 23, but has a deep soul capable of making music of great beauty and longing. He reminds me a bit of Goran Bregović, yet he's more wistful and less frantic. He sings the songs of a million past summers. Enjoy:
"Elephant Gun":
"Postcards from Italy":
Beirut:
Webpage
Myspace
7 comments:
Cool stuff. Alex liked it a lot, too. Do you have an album?
So he's Eddie Condon's grandson - that's great. Condon was one of the early guitar heroes. (And banjo.) Played with Bix, Fats, Louis, Big T...
The videos are also well-done.
Oh, interesting! The ukulele is just so under appreciated :)
William -- yes, I have one (Gulag Orkester). Good stuff. I didn't notice the Eddie Condon connection. That explains why he's making such good music at such a young age. He was raised in a musical tradition.
Crystal --
Yes, the ukulele is the new accordion.
Heard you're getting a new archbishop!
Hi Garpu,
Yeah, he seems a lot more agreeable than the last one.
A couple of years ago I was at a music book sale looking for stuff to sell online. I thought I was taking a chance but I bought a bunch of ukulele material: a history of the instrument, instructional booklets, collections of ukulele tunes etc. I sold it all within days. Apparently there's a vast ukulele underground out there.
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