Albums to watch

March Of The Zapotec/Holland

Beirut

March Of The Zapotec/Holland

Double EP of Eastern European gypsy-flavoured folk/pop hybrid from New Mexican experimentalists

ADM rating[?]

6.4

Label
Pompeii
UK Release date
16/02/2009
  1. 8.1 |   Pitchfork

    Like many young, culture-hungry travelers, Condon seems to be embracing as much as possible, re-shaping his interior musical landscape as he continues to learn the tricks of the trade from masters and street performers in various parts of the world.
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  2. 8.0 |   PopMatters

    Zach Condon’s voice is enough to unify the two halves of this substantial release. If you put the album on shuffle, the songs blend into a surprisingly coherent whole.
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  3. 8.0 |   Drowned In Sound

    It’s not the third Beirut album, like, proper. But as a means of sating collective appetites before that record does arrive – heightening expectations, even – it is a remarkable achievement.
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  4. 8.0 |   NME

    Strangely, it’s the synth-pop gems of second EP ‘Holland’ that seem the most foreign.
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  5. 8.0 |   The List

    Retreads faux naive folk ground, this time with a Mexican bent and a plaintive tone amid the oompah, accordian and unforgiving Mariachi horns.
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  6. 7.0 |   Daily Telegraph

    It's happy, sad, and gorgeous.
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  7. 7.0 |   Spin

    Thank God for that voice. Without such caramel pipes, Beirut's Zach Condon would never be able to own his shape-shifting styles -- elegant French pop and Balkan folk on past albums, Mexican funeral marches here.
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  8. 6.0 |   The Guardian

    Released separately, these EPs might have established Condon's diversity. Together they merely confirm his lack of identity.
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  9. 6.0 |   Observer Music Monthly

    A double EP, rather than an album, Zach Condon's third outing is a curio.
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  10. 6.0 |   musicOMH

    The playfulness of these two EPs is both their strength and their weakness.
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  11. 6.0 |   Uncut

    Twin EPs on one disc from the vagabond trumpeter, exploring Mexican brass and lofi synthpop.
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  12. 5.0 |   Rolling Stone

    The effect is all mood, no meaning — a blurry view from a tourist's bus as it zips past a landscape, on the way to the next ""exotic"" stop.
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  13. 4.0 |   The Irish Times

    He can do much better - and he probably knows it.
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  14. 4.0 |   The Quietus

    What's truly at play on this double EP is simply the warbling of an apt pupil who has mistaken mere gesture for substance in his rush to prove himself a serious artiste.
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