Matching Tracksuits

Few things bring up as many memories, immerse one so fully in the past, as listening after many years to music that once formed the center of your orbit when young, music that you know ever nuance, ever breath of the vocalist, every small detail that at first went unnoticed. Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints is one such album for me. It was the regular soundtrack of my college years, an album I listened to so frequently that had it been on cassette instead of CD, I certainly would have worn it out.

I received the album as part of the introductory twelve-CDs-for-a-penny package from Columbia House, the now-defunct mail-order music club that was one of the many casualty of streaming services. I must have joined the club, bought the requisite CDs, quit, and rejoined half a dozen times, and Rhythm was one of the selections I chose on the basis of liking the artist but knowing nothing about the album. It captivated me from the first instant, from the first moment of the first song, “The Obvious Child.”

Every element of every song captivated me: the tones of the guitars, the rhythms of the percussion, the lyrics, the arrangements, the paradoxical diversity and continuity of all the songs. It was an album that I could immediately replay after finishing it, using it as an endless loop for the soundtrack of just about any activity.

I don’t know the last time I listened to Rhythm, but while driving to CYS rehearsal this afternoon, E and I were listening to You’ll Hear It, a podcast that explores albums in depth, one album per episode. After the Boy went into rehearsal, I sat for a moment scrolling through the episodes to find some interesting ones for future trips, and I noticed they have an episode on Still Crazy After All These Years. As I sat waiting for the Boy, I decided to listen to Still Crazy. My thoughts turned to the role Simon’s music has played through my life and I remembered Rhythm and switched to it immediately. It was like opening a portal to the past. Suddenly, I was in the print shop at my college printing covers for the literary magazine for which I was the editor my senior year. I only stayed there a second before landing in my car, driving back from class and singing along with Simon with abandon (but not much skill). Another moment and I was standing on the grassy oval that served as the hub of my college, handing the CD to a friend with a warning: “I need this back in a day or two.” Each song felt warm and inviting, like meeting with an old friend for the first time in years and finding we are just as close now as we were years ago despite the break.

I would have just had to see the album cover for Beirut’s 2006 debut album Gulag Orkestar to have known they would be something special.

As it was, I discovered the thanks to Spotify’s auto-curated playlist the app plays at the end of an album. Band of Horses’ debut Everything All the Time finished up and Spotify began picking songs based off that last selection. A song by Beirut came on, and it had my attention immediately. Accordion, Balkan-style brass, and a modern rhythmic sensibility. It piqued my interest to say the last. I dove in, choosing their second album based on the cover art itself:

“Cliquot” is a song of longing, a song of nostalgia, a song that is at once timeless and modern. “I didn’t know people made music like this anymore,” I thought when I first heard it, immediately listening to it again.

“Gallipoli” with its electronic opening sounds starkly different, and then the horns enter, and you start to notice a trend in Beirut’s music: brass plays the central. Cue the drums and you have a song that sounds completely different than “Cliquot” and yet strangely similar. The vocals enter, and you wonder if it’s not Morrissey singing.

So we’re on this journey into Beirut’s music together and you look at me and say, “I think we’ve found the common thread.” And I say, “Yes, but we haven’t heard the newest album, Hadsel from 2023.” The organ begins and sudden, it’s as if we’ve never heard Beirut before — totally different.

That angelic voice! Those harmonies! All weaving about the organ (a 19th-century organ in Norway). “This is a new side of Beirut,” you say.

And then the trumpet enters.

Lest one think one has cornered Beirut, there’s songs like “Fyodor Dormant,” which begins with an electronic intro that sounds more like eighties dance music before the horns come in, turning the relatively simple intro into a multi-layered Balkan dance tune.

It even has a drum machine! “A totally different Beirut!” I declare. You smile: you’ve given this a surreptitious listen before. You know — the trumpet is coming.

“East Harlem” is up next, and we’re in familiar territory: a squeeze box introduction. And suddenly there’s piano playing eighth-notes as rhythm. It’s a different side. A lighter side. And then the trumpet enters followed by the other brass instruments, and everything changes. Back to a new same old Beirut.

But where is that pure Balkan-flavored music we got a taste of with “Cliquot”? “Let’s go back to the debut album,” you suggest, and there it is.

“I wonder what Beirut would sound like trying to create a pop so with a catchy music video to go along with it,” you muse. Sounds impossible after “Prenzlauerber,” but if we’ve learned anything about Beirut it’s that nothing is impossible. Cue: “No No No.”

And finally, perhaps their finest moment to date: “Arctic Forest.” That music can be so calming, so beautiful, and yet have a beat that renders some kind of movement irresistible — even if you don’t have a dancing bone in your body — is a miracle itself. Add to that the gorgeous arrangement that seems to build but never overwhelm, and you have one of the most perfect songs ever created.

Beirut has been making music for over fifteen years now, and we’ve only now discovered this treasure. It could be worse: we might never have met with this perfection.

In short, the most original and creative musician currently working.

First (and maybe only) full family concert.