After a strangely quiet 2008, Zach Condon —the oft prolific, ever-traveling troubadour who records as Beirut— has circled February 26 on his 2009 calendar, marking it as the day he'll unveil the artistic output of his past year. Condon will release a double EP, March of the Zapotec, which shows the young crooner working in two different musical modes.March of the Zapotec, itself, is six songs of brassy bombast and sweaty rhythms, a collaboration between Condon and The Jimenez Band, a nineteen-man combo from the tiny weaver village of Teotitlan del Valle, outside of Oaxaca, México.
The second-half of the set, Holland, is technically, and a little confusingly, billed under Condon's solo handle, Realpeople. A much more electronic, synth-driven series of home-made, on-his-own works, this five-song batch shows the obvious, lingering influence of Stephin Merritt (leader of the Magnetic Fields, the Gothic Archies, and The Sixths) on Condon.
Though the 11 total tracks add up to an album's worth of material, March of the Zapotec is certainly not the third Beirut album; it essentially filling in the gap until Condon turns in the eventual longplaying follow-up to 2007's The Flying Club Cup. For the moment, the songs on March of the Zapotec should be enough to sate even the most ravenous Beirut fan.
March of the Zapotec Track List
March of the Zapotec:
1. "El Zocalo"
2. "La Llorna"
3. "My Wife"
4. "The Akara"
5. "On a Bayonet"
6. "The Shrew"
Holland:
7. "My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille"
8. "My Wife, Lost in the Wild"
9. "Venice"
10. "The Concubine"
11. "No Dice"
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