Review: Zach Condon's Beirut inspires
It's hard to know whether composer-singer Zach Condon has forever made Beirut - be it the large Gulag Orkestar of his initial albums or the small ensemble that is 2015's No No No - in his own image; whether he, as a person, is more insular or less expansive now than in his broad band's past.
It's hard to know whether composer-singer Zach Condon has forever made Beirut - be it the large
Gulag Orkestar
of his initial albums or the small ensemble that is 2015's
No No No
- in his own image; whether he, as a person, is more insular or less expansive now than in his broad band's past.
What is definably still true, as witnessed during Beirut's Friday night showcase at Upper Darby's Tower Theater, is that Condon & Co. still imbue his cranky yet ethereal brand of alterna-folk with the tones of French chanson; Balkan skronk; Bacharach-ian bachelor-pad balladry and synth-pop; and, of course, grandeur. Only now the soaring sound of that epic mass is tighter, more concentrically circled into one bippity-bopping ball of waxing and pining. Beirut's youngish, near sellout crowd ate up every mumbled lyrical phrase, usually by singing it back to Condon.
At six musicians strong, this sensationally hammy, cabaret-samba-centric Beirut sounded like Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass backing a subtly trilling Morrissey without that moaner's high-level dose of ire to guide him. No ounce of fat in its brass' arrangement (or song length, as many of the 70-minute set's tracks lasted barely three minutes), Brooklyn-based Beirut cut a mighty swath. Singing with a warm, muddled Moz-like quiver (when he wasn't playing trumpet or tousling his hair), Condon ran the gamut of emotions from A to B (thank you, Dorothy Parker). Yet that range captured his recent past (divorce, illness) and the feel-good esprit of such scintillating travelogues as "East Harlem," "Postcards from Italy," "Perth," and "Santa Fe." Even the salty, swaying "My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille" with its poetic rumination ("now outside, I see your eyes meet the sky") was creepily chipper. The aquatic bossa nova "Nantes," the Anka-like ('50s Anka, not '70s Anka) "August Holland," and the jumpy "No No No" emitted cool, jovial passion.
Condon saved his most impassioned, least wobbly vocal for "The Gulag Orkestar," its mantra-like "They call it night and I call it mine" playing handsomely before his brass ensemble's mix of dramatic bullfight anthem and funeral march. "In the Mausoleum" was, of course, mournful, yet its curling, sad riffs sounded like a mini-mashup of Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts theme and Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. All in all, Beirut was gorgeous.