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Tomorrow night, Thursday, October 12, two bands that borrow their sounds from Eastern European Gypsy music play at the Empty Bottle. Beirut is the much-ballyhooed project of 20-year old Zach Condon, a New Mexico native who moved to New York this year, and it’s received plenty of ink for its debut, Gulag Orkestar (Ba Da Bing!). Like many people — myself included — Condon caught the fever for Gypsy brass-band music through the films of Emir Kusturica, and a visit to Europe allowed him to take in those sounds first hand. He then multitracked trumpet, accordion, piano, ukulele, mandolin, percussion, and organ, and a handful of compatriots further fleshed out the arrangements. But while the instrumentation clearly seeks to evoke the raucous, passionate energy of Balkan music, the songs themselves are rooted in American pop forms. Condon has admitted that he doesn’t intend to devote himself to these stylistic choices — it’s kind of a phase he’s going through — but he does a nice job of personalizing Gypsy sounds.
