US indie rock giant Beirut finds rebirth in Turkey

Hailed while still a teenager as a newfound giant of indie rock, Zach Condon, the frontman of the band Beirut, suddenly saw his life crumble two years ago.

Weakened by years of incessant shows and the emotional torment of a divorce, the New York-based artist was hospitalized while touring Australia and retreated from the music world as quickly as he had emerged seven years earlier.

Beirut on Friday releases "No No No," the band's first album since Condon's late 2013 breakdown, and the now 29-year-old songwriter feels a creative rebirth -- which he experienced, away from his music, in Istanbul.

Condon fell in love with a Turkish woman, now his fiancee, who welcomed him to her city and family on extended trips that felt life-recharging for the peripatetic young artist.

"I honestly feel that when I went to Turkey, it was just to learn -- and it wasn't about music, it was about life," Condon told AFP at a small Brooklyn coffeehouse near where the band recorded the album.

Condon, clad in an anonymously plain T-shirt, spoke with a quiet intensity as he smoked cigarettes but grew animated when discussing Istanbul.

"I realized in some weird way how little I know about the world," he said. "Istanbul has become a second home."

- Returning to Western roots in East -

Beirut -- which despite the band's name has no direct Lebanese connection -- won rave reviews for its 2006 debut album "Gulag Orkestar," which incorporated brass from Balkan music that Condon had discovered watching arthouse films as he grew up in New Mexico.

Condon sings in a deep, often melancholy voice that has drawn parallels to the dour indie godfather Stephin Merritt as well as Francophone legends such as Jacques Brel, contributing to the band's popularity in continental Europe.

Yet paradoxically, his new passion for Turkey has not taken the band further east musically. Instead, "No No No" is closer to Western pop than Beirut's three previous albums.

"As much as I love Turkish music, I can't be part of that. It's just so far removed from the way that I know music that it's one of those things I can only view as a tourist," he said.

"Quite literally, I can't understand their sense of melody and even their scales are different," Condon said.

Condon said his initial incorporation of music from the Balkans -- as well as France and Mexico -- was little deeper than playing with sounds.

"It was never a big, meaningful thing like I was trying to adopt some culture that wasn't mine," he said.

"But when I got to Turkey it just seemed so utterly ridiculous that I realized that, if anything, I should probably just hold on to my roots."

- Freed from dark cloud -

In another potential surprise after Condon's personal turmoil, "No No No" is strikingly joyful.

The Beirut brass comes back on the title track, but the horns remain in the background and let a light pop melody carry the tune.

Songs such as "Gibraltar," "August Holland" and "Perth" build off piano or guitar chord progressions and stay determinedly uptempo.

Condon felt stifled after his breakdown and scrapped entire albums worth of new music.

He longed to return to the musical experimentation he enjoyed before his stardom.

"I was actually, literally, afraid that people would be like, 'Where is the brass? Where is the ukulele?'" he said.

"It seems simple but at the time it had kind of a dramatic emotional effect on me."

But Condon said that the album finally came together in just two weeks after drummer Nick Petree and bassist Paul Collins, both band members since the New Mexico days, gave him the confidence to try new directions and not force himself to "hide everything in some kind of instrumental or melodic darkness."

"It did come to a moment where I said, maybe it doesn't matter if (I) can pay the mortgage on the house I have now. Maybe it's more important that you have your own sanity."

- Long homecoming to Beirut -

Condon has spent nearly a decade in Brooklyn and still praises the musical dynamism of the New York borough.

But he recently decided to shift to the relative calm of upstate New York and said he would readily consider a permanent move to Istanbul.

And Condon has finally made it to another crucial city for him -- Beirut.

The band debuted in Lebanon last year at the Byblos International Festival, but Condon first traveled to Beirut in 2013 to discover the namesake city at his own pace with his Turkish girlfriend.

Condon described the Lebanese capital as "epically beautiful" and was struck by the local music scene, including the quality of electronica at clubs.

"If you tell me a city name, my imagination immediately sparks all sorts of things and goes crazy," the boy from New Mexico said, explaining the choice of the band's name.

"Beirut to me was always the closest -- and farthest -- thing that I could reach culturally," he said.

"It's absurd that it took me this long to get there."
Source: AFP