Philadelphia Weekly

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Beirut—the musically globetrotting brainchild of New Mexico native Zach Condon—comes to town behind new double EP March of the Zapotec/Holland, which stacks music spawned from a recording session in Mexico atop bedroom electro-pop that Condon made in his pre-Beirut days under the moniker Realpeople. We rang up Condon for Review the Reviews, wherein we read excerpts from album reviews and get the reaction of the reviewed.

“March is the sound of a musician continuing to evolve and, most importantly, allowing himself to be persuaded by his inspirations without losing sight of his own creative personality.” (Pitchfork)

“Yeah, that’s pretty positive. I’ve always been like, ‘God, what if Pitchfork really likes [Beirut] one day?’ And by the time they finally gave us this good score, I was actually kind of disappointed because the review sounded like a bit of a fluff piece. It’s awesome that they didn’t drag us through the mud. But I was all prepared to get ripped, so it was almost a letdown.”

“Holland is at its best on Venice, where pale winter sunbeam synths, reminiscent of Boards of Canada, are played upon by a mournful breeze of brass. It’s wonderfully unexpected, as though Miles Davis was riffing with Vangelis on some post-bop Blade Runner.” (Uncut)

[laughs] “You gotta take a class for this kind of thing? There must be a music journalism class in ‘Obscure References 101.’ That’s cool, I guess. People always compare. I remember with the first album realizing I was being an indignant teenager because they’d be like, ‘It sounds like Neutral Milk Hotel’ and I’d be like, ‘Fuck you, no it doesn’t!’ And then I’d think, ‘Wait a second, I fucking love Neutral Milk Hotel!’”

“This is disappointing evidence that perhaps even he believes his particular take on Eastern European oompa deserves to be segregated and treated with retrospective romanticism—as some sort of unknowable relic untouched by the transient currency of today’s music—rather than receive the full brunt of technical and conceptual interrogation.” (CokeMachineGlow)

“Uhhh, you lost me there a little bit ago [laughs]. I wonder if I’ll ever be accepted into a more academic circle of music in my lifetime. I got a really interesting request recently to speak at a lecture hall and I was laughing my ass off. They were like, ‘No, we’re serious.’ But then stuff like this comes out and I realize there’s a reason I kinda distance myself from that world.”