Walking the streets of this ancient city, but recalling its more modern, tragic times.

Beirut’s 2006 album Gulag Orkestar is Zach Condon‘s ode to Eastern Europe, inspired by the Germanic and Balkan folk music tradition of horns, mandolin, accordion and ukelele. Kind of incongruous coming from a Alberquerque teenager (Condon was but a pip squeak of 19 when he recorded Gulag Orkestar). What he came up with sounded like he had been drinking vodka, smoking cigarettes and playing cards for decades in a decaying Eastern Bloc country, rather than emerging from a studio in Alberquerque, New Mexico.

I saw Beirut play at the Mascotte back in 2007, and it was one of the most joyous, invigorating gigs I’ve had the happy chance to attend, Zach Condon looking like the fresh-faced college boy he was, with a euphoric outpouring of trumpeting horns and ukelele backing his vocals up.

‘Postcards from Italy‘ was always my favourite from Gulag Orkestar, and today I found it’s yearning melodic sweetness perfect for the faded grandeur of this town, with its melancholy Gothic architecture stretching up into the sky.