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Beirut/Real People
March of the Zapotec/Holland
Review By Jesse Jarnow
Billed a double-EP, Zach Condon's March of the Zapotec/Holland is literally a two-sided affair: one in the guise of Beirut, dishing out the twentysomething songwriter's melancholy with brass-infused sways, the other as Realpeople, Condon's pre-Beirut nom de plume, delivering his melancholy via bedroom electronica. Recorded in Oaxaca, Mexico with the 19-piece Jimenez brass band, a marching outfit specializing in funerals, the first six songs are perhaps the most engaging, convincing music Condon has yet produced. Minus the affected hipsters-playing-at-gypsydom blow-outs for which Condon has become known, March of the Zapotec finds the perfect frame for his show-tuney bellow. Sweet, sad songs like "La Llorna" and intricate horn patterns like "The Akara" are instant pleasers.
The disc's Realpeople half — four tunes of laptop gimcracks and one rather decent Beirut-like number ("The Concubine") — is a bit more problematic. Condon's vocal strategies are exactly the same, but without the power of brass, he's just another home-recording auteur with decent pipes. Atop an insistent kick drum ("My Night With the Prostitute from Marseille") and Euro-trash pop beats ("No Dice"), Holland takes itself less seriously than most of Condon's output, but it's too much theatrical melodrama for too little substance.
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