5.04.2006

Something good from Albuquerque not named The Shins?


Oh how I've been longing for a new indie pop sensation to bully a path into my headphones, and lo and behold today it happened. Meet Beirut, a 19 year-old kid from Albuquerque who is sure to find fans among the Jens Lekman set. His record is set to drop on Tuesday on Ba Da Bing! (who knew they were still a label?), and has been generating a ton of buzz via the blogs. The Lekman comparison is only partially on, but is accurate in terms of preferred instrumentation: There are no guitars on his album, but plenty of ukuleles, mandolins, cellos, glockenspiels, accordions, horns, and the like. He's also been compared to Neutral Milk Hotel, because his music has that rustic, rag-tag collective feel, and because Jeremy Barnes (of NMH fame) is on board here. But my favorite description yet is "a Balkan Magnetic Fields" -- also not entirely accurate, but wildly fascinating nonetheless.

Listen and like.

Beirut - "Postcards from Italy"

1 comment:

thenoiseboy said...

Hardy-har-har. I've got the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" comp from way back. I just hadn't heard much from Ba Da Bing! in a while. Wasn't trying to be an ass...