BEIRUT

BEIRUT
GULAG ORKESTAR (2006)
320 KBPS

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.

1. The Gulag Orkestar
2. Prenzlauerberg
3. Bandenburg
4. Postcards From Italy
5. Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)
6. Rhineland (Heartland)
7. Scenic World
8. Bratislava
9. The Bunker
10. The Canals Of Our City
11. After The Curtain

Bonus Disc
Lon Gisland E.P.
1. Elephant Gun
2. My Family's Role in the World Revolution
3. Scenic World
4. The Long Island Sound
5. Carousels