Tunes Consumed: the Poutine Silver Platter

Before even dipping into the latest Beirut offering The Flying Club Cup there’s a whole host of things to keep in mind.

For starters, while not a concept album, per se, Zach Condon was explicit with the intent of the album, and that intent is not so distant from Sufjan’s own 50 States project, on a much smaller (practical?) scale. Each song is meant to carry with it the air of a particular city in France, and as Joshua points out in his review, it makes atmospheres come alive with rich vibrancy through orchestration just the way the soundtrack for Amelie was able to. While listening to the album and trying to draw connections, it’s sometimes just as easy as a cursory glance at the track name to know which city it’s attached to, cities like “Nantes” or “Cherbourg” are directly connected to the track names (tracks #2 and #11, respectively), while others require a little more digging. Track #12, for instance commemorates the statue of Saint Appolina held at the church in Locronan, and still others are plays on French words (track #5: La Banlieu -> “banlieue” as French for “suburbs”). Translations aren’t always as fruitful, with tracks like “Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)” translating to “Last Drink (For The Road)” or track #8 “Forks and Knives (La Fete)” is fêteor celebration.

“Forks and Knives” celebrates with violins, and with easy-come drums that sway to-and-fro, backed by voices that almost cheer in the background, cheering for one old man easing and passing away “he means well, sang ‘I’ve got stories of wine, and of course my childhood forks and knives and then the hospital bed where I turn my life over and over again.” It is homage to the folks who live, breathe, and fade away from the lives of the cities themselves. If it wasn’t for the instrumentals, you might even well up, fortunately it is dosed up with a senile, blissful cheer and you can’t help but sway along.

Interestingly, that last track is followed up by “In The Mausoleum” which stings of piano work reminiscient of Charlie Brown, and for me at least, conjures up in those first few strokes an image of the children scurrying along concrete floors. I also can’t help but think of the famous bass-section keys from “Linus and Lucy“.

If you have a knack for Eastern-European instrumentals like I do, you’ll be delighted to know that Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) is once again a real and strong driving force for the studio work on Club Cup, as is Owen Pallett (of Final Fantasy and Arcade Fire fame) present in supplying guest vocals and even some of the signature string arrangements he’s known for. The trio working in tandem like this is undoubtedly one of the reasons that Beirut, since Gulag has seemed to have aged nearly a decade, successfully generating a palette of decadent tracks, and without compromise can seamlessly move about between the playful and the emotional.

As a final and important note, the cover, lush with old-time beach fun (read: bold stripes and over-clothed women in lawn chairs) was Mr. Condon’s beloved inspiration that hung on his wall during his in-home composing sessions for The Flying Club Cup: “Back in the early 1900s, like the 1910s or 1920s, there used to be this hot air balloon festival in Paris– it’s titled after that and after this very bizarre 1910 photo I found. It’s one of the first color photos ever made, at the World’s Fair, and it…shows all these ancient hot air balloons about to take off in the middle of Paris. I just thought it was the most surreal image I’d seen in a long time.”

listen:
Beirut - Nantes
Beirut - Forks and Knives (La Fete)
Beirut - In The Mausoleum
Vince Guaraldi Trio - Linus and Lucy

The album is slated for an October 9th release on Ba Da Bing records, and Amazon has pre-orders up for when you’re ready.

[header image cropped from this photo]