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Avg: 4.0 (1124 ratings)
- Date Released: October 9, 2007
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Alternative
- Label: Ba Da Bing Records / Revolver
An album filled with dark-eyed violinists and trembling lost loves.
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We Say...
This album is so damn charming that it's easy to overlook its wit, sophistication and sheer musicality. Like Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright and Ray Davies, Beirut mastermind Zach Condon has an unashamedly white Anglo voice, one that's both collegial and collegiate, yearning and self-sufficient, the voice of a man who would bum a smoke and then buy you a drink. Like its predecessor, Gulag Orkestar, The Flying Club Cup is filled with a gorgeous oom-pah sound, effectively imagining a past that exists only in black & white films and picture postcards from forgotten seaside resorts.
Where Gulag Orkestar could have been set in Budapest circa 1910, The Flying Club Cup exists in the banlieues of Paris between the wars, smoky and sun-dappled as only the past can be. Condon still leans on an acoustic sound that's part cabaret, part dormitory in its gentle inclusiveness — it's all accordions, ukuleles and staggered choruses, replete with whatever horn players could be rounded up. "A Sunday Smile," "Forks and Knives" and "Nantes" are standouts, but the album feels very much a whole, the songs weaving in and out of each other in a lovely dance of hopeful melancholy.
Like Gulag Orkestar, the new album appears to have been recorded in someone's bedroom between naps. This time, though, the bed, the room and the dreams seem to have grown larger. The closets are filled with dark-eyed violinists and trembling lost loves. Same thing? Very likely. -
They Say...
Credit Zach Condon for not acting his age. While many 21-year-olds are working on finishing up their undergraduate years, Condon is making albums. And not just any messily-recorded-in-the-garage (or GarageBand) albums, but fully developed and composed and realized albums. His first full-length, under the name Beirut, Gulag Orkestar, with its Eastern European-inspired horns and strings, a kind of Neutral Milk Hotel-meets-gypsy field recordings, was adored in the indie rock world, and its successor, The Flying Club Cup, is an even more mature accomplishment. Though not as immediately catchy as his debut, The Flying Club Cup contains a sense of intrigue that pulls the listener in beguilingly, twisting and swaying and marching its way through the romanticized ideas of the Balkan town, the rustic Southern French village, the small Italian trattoria. It's elaborate New World indie pop that tries to touch the Old as best it can. Flügelhorns and accordions and mandolins line the 13 songs here like old bricks, Condon's voice rising elegiacally over in layered swells, tired and wise, inspired by, but not limited to, the rich French musical past, from Tino Rossi to Jacques Brel. Because Beirut plays music that feels like it's been reflected off a long and storied life, there's the possibility for unearned pretension to appear, but there's a real sincerity, and a sense of life, that finds its way into the songs here. Condon and his collaborators (which include Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett, who even sings on the lovely "Cliquot") have not forgotten the kind of jocularity and community inherent in the folk traditions they pull from, so even as violins, organs, and harpsichords play dramatic and acute melodies and the vocals ascend to a feverish intensity, that feeling of being in the back of some tavern, passing around dishes and glasses and singing aloud with your compatriots, is present, and keeps things grounded, more real. "In the Mausoleum" balances syncopated piano with minor melodies and an ominous upright bass, while both "Guyamas Sonora" and the title track use dramatic horns to convey a kind of triumph in the prosperity of the tradition. It's thoughtful and fun and sophisticated, utterly alluring, another fantastic success by Zach Condon.
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| 01. |
A Call To Arms |
0:20 |
|
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| 02. |  |
Nantes |
3:52 |
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| 03. | |
A Sunday Smile |
3:37 |
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| 04. | |
Guyamas Sonora |
3:33 |
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| 05. | |
La Banlieue |
1:59 |
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| 06. | |
Cliquot |
3:53 |
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| 07. | |
The Penalty |
2:24 |
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| 08. | |
Forks and Knives (La Fête) |
3:35 |
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| 09. | |
In The Mausoleum |
3:12 |
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| 10. | |
Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route) |
2:53 |
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| 11. | |
Cherbourg |
3:35 |
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| 12. | |
St. Apollonia |
3:00 |
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| 13. | |
The Flying Club Cup |
3:05 |
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13 Total Tracks, 38:58 Total Length
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Credits
- Mark Lawson - Engineer // Jon Natchez - Clarinet // Jon Natchez - Flute // Jon Natchez - Mandolin // Jon Natchez - Clarinet (Bass) // Jon Natchez - Sax (Baritone) // Jon Natchez - Melodica // Griffin Rodriguez - Vocals (Background) // Griffin Rodriguez - Engineer // Griffin Rodriguez - Mastering // Griffin Rodriguez - Mixing // Kelly Pratt - Euphonium // Owen Pallett - Organ // Owen Pallett - Violin // Owen Pallett - Celeste // Owen Pallett - Harpsichord // Owen Pallett - Vocals // Owen Pallett - String Arrangements // Zach Condon - Mandolin // Zach Condon - Percussion // Zach Condon - Piano // Zach Condon - Trumpet // Zach Condon - Accordion // Zach Condon - Euphonium // Zach Condon - Flugelhorn // Zach Condon - Glockenspiel // Zach Condon - French Horn // Zach Condon - Ukulele // Zach Condon - Vocals // Zach Condon - Vocals (Background) // Zach Condon - Engineer // Zach Condon - Farfisa Organ // Zach Condon - Mixing // Zach Condon - Wurlitzer // Zach Condon - Conch Shell // Heather Trost - Violin // Heather Trost - Viola // Kendrick Strauch - Piano // Perrin Cloutier - Accordion // Perrin Cloutier - Cello // Perrin Cloutier - Viola // Perrin Cloutier - Vocals (Background) // Perrin Cloutier - Bass (Upright) // Paul Collins - Bouzouki // Ryan Condon - Story // Kristin Ferebee - Violin // Kristin Ferebee - Vocals (Background) // Alexandra Klasinski - Design // Alexandra Klasinski - Layout Design // Nick Petree - Guitar // Nick Petree - Percussion // Nick Petree - Vocals (Background) // Jason Poranski - Mandolin // Jason Poranski - Vocals (Background) // Jason Poranski - Mandolin Arrangement // Kristianna Smith - Design // Kristianna Smith - Layout Design
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