As a sort of stop-gap between last year's superb The Flying Club Cup and the next notch on the Beirut album belt, Zach Condon's Beirut present two, short, stylistically and thematically opposing EPs, and thankfully, all on the one CD. March of The Zapotec is a more traditional, Mexican themed offering, while Holland, as presented here by earlier Beirut moniker Real People, is predominantly synth pop laptop music with, you guessed it, a Dutch backdrop, despite being recorded in Condon's Brooklyn bedroom.
The story goes: Condon became obsessed by funeral bands of the Oaxaca region while considering composing a soundtrack for a Mexican film, and took it upon himself to commandeer a trilingual translator and a 19-piece Jiminez band. You can tell. March of The Zapotec is much more of a slow burner than previous Beirut offerings, with the morbid, funereal undercurrents seeping into almost every breath of Zapotec (bar 30 second opener El Zocalo, which sounds more like it came straight from a Disney animal bandstand). Still, this doesn't stop La Llorona presenting a succession of moving motifs, while The Shrew's horns waltz delicately before transforming into Mexican mayhem.
And while you'd expect the more practised, traditional EP to be stronger, it's not the case. Though Beirut previously focused on French and Balkan folk music, it's not the first time Condon has played around with electronics, as proven by 2006's Gulag Orkestar's Scenic World. Still Condon's wandering melodies and extraordinary vocal harmonies are just as well presented through electronic arrangement as in the traditional way, better in places. My Night With a Prostitute From Marseilles, originally selected by none other than Natalie Portman for charity compilation "Big Change: Songs for Finca", opens with a 90s style dance pop hook, while pitch altered vocals give extra depth to Condon's many layers. It's only a shame that Condon may occasionally have gotten carried away with the joys of looping, as on closer No Dice. Still, as always, it's Condon's masterful voice that steals the show.
