Postcards from Italy

I posted the demo version of this track back in February, but here's the completed album version from Beirut's upcoming Gulag Orkestar, due out May 9 on Ba Da Bing Records.

Beirut is 19 year-old Albuquerque native Zach Condon. Ba Da Bing tells me that this is Beirut's fourth album (he's also recorded a doo-wop album, an electronica album, and an electro-pop album), but the first that will see release.

This version, which features the drumming of Jeremy Barnes (of Neutral Milk Hotel), is fuller, and as a result, more emotionally sweeping than the demo. Beirut draws from influences like Magnetic Fields, NMH, and Middle-Eastern instrumentation to create something entirely new and beautiful.

Beirut Postcards from Italy mp3

elsewhere:

Thanks to the anonymous reader who sent in the (fake) album artwork for the aforementioned Sufjan Stevens/Rosie Thomas collabo: