A sound area, an organ maybe, very leisurely changes the pitch, it goes up and down and upwards, and nothing actually happens. Pure atmosphere, as a Study of Losses begins, and it is a announcement: Zach Condon is on his seventh album as a Beirut, almost two decades after the celebrated debut Gulag Orkestar, looking for his own feeling.
On the one hand, this is strange, because a Study of Losses is an order work, a soundtrack for the show of the Swedish circus company Giraff. On the other hand, however, the function as an accompanying music ensures that Condon focuses on moods, the epic melodies, the strings that are looking like clouds, the monotonous banjo, that everything is completely in the service of a mood that shells exclusively between gray and beige.
Seven of the 18 pieces are consequently instrumental, but even in the songs, the vocals are always just another instrument, sometimes Condon only sings Hmmm or Aahahah or wistfully in the duet with the cello. This fits the theme of the album, which, inspired by Judith Schalansky’s book “List of some losses”, so persistently reveals transience, loss and your belly button like the songs, which always pull the same grinding.
You can find out which albums were still published in April 2025 via our monthly publication list.