Pitchfork

Photo by Kathryn Yu

Beirut has launched a website, and to celebrate, there's a new mp3 for download from the upcoming album The Flying Club Cup, the follow-up to last year's Pitchfork-recommended Gulag Orkestar and this year's Lon Gisland EP. When Beirut, aka New Mexico-raised New Yorker Zach Condon, played "A Sunday Smile" live in Paris recently, the new song had the brass oompahs of Macedonian band Kočani Orkestar. The album version maintains this gypsy rhythm, but it starts out with sparse electronic tones and Condon's multi-tracked, lightly distorted baritone. "All I wanted was the best for our lives," he begins wistfully. As the waltzing melodies wheel around, a Balkan village's (or a Brooklyn neighborhood's) worth of overdubbed vocals and creaking instrumentation joins in. Despite the 21st-century opening, the slurred lyrics and old-country feel make "A Sunday Smile" sound like the kind of handed-down song where everyone knows at least the chorus-- and sings it when the bar is about to close. Not much to it, but ask us again at the end of the night.

MP3:> Beirut: "A Sunday Smile"
[from The Flying Club Cup; due 10/09/07 on Ba Da Bing!]