The Flying Club Cup

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The Flying Club Cup
The Flying Club Cup cover
Studio album by Beirut
Released October 9th, 2007
Genre Folk music
Length 38:35
Label Ba Da Bing!, 4AD
Professional reviews
Beirut chronology
Elephant Gun EP
(2007)		 The Flying Club Cup
(2007)

The Flying Club Cup is the second album by Beirut. It was pre-released on September 4, 2007 on iTunes, and was officially released by 4AD Records on October 9 of that year. The album was leaked onto the internet on August 26, 2007. It features string arrangements by Owen Pallett, better known by his stage name Final Fantasy, and was mastered by Griffin Rodriguez.[1]

Contents

[edit] Background

Condon on the name and inspiration for the new album:

“ Back in the early 1900s...there used to be this hot air balloon festival in Paris--[the album's] titled after that and after this very bizarre 1910 photo I found [by Léon Gimpel]. It's one of the first color photos ever made, at the World's Fair, and it...shows all these ancient hot air balloons about to take off in the middle of Paris. I just thought it was the most surreal image I'd seen in a long time. ”

Condon on the sound of the new album:

“ I was listening to a lot of Jacques Brel and French chanson music--pop songs shrouded in big, glorious, over-the-top arrangements and all this drama--and that was in some sense unfamiliar territory to me. So I started buying new instruments and relying on things I wasn't necessarily comfortable with, like French horns and euphoniums, carrying these big, epic big brass parts that I used to do all on trumpets, and working with accordion and organ instead of all ukulele--very much throwing myself in the world of classical pop music, I guess you could say. ”

According to the program notes given out during Beirut's performance at The Society for Ethical Culture in New York on September 24th, 2007, each song on the new album is intended to evoke a different French city. Several songs from the album have been played on tour.

[edit] Track listing

All songs written by Zach Condon, except where noted.

  1. "A Call to Arms" - 0:18
  2. "Nantes" - 3:50
  3. "A Sunday Smile" - 3:36
  4. "Guyamas Sonora" - 3:31
  5. "La Banlieue" - 1:58
  6. "Cliquot" (Zach Condon, Owen Pallett) - 3:52
  7. "The Penalty" - 2:22
  8. "Forks and Knives (La Fête)" - 3:34
  9. "In the Mausoleum" - 3:11
  10. "Un Dernier Verre (Pour la Route)" (Zach Condon, Kendrick Strauch) - 2:51
  11. "Cherbourg" - 3:33
  12. "St. Apollonia" - 2:59
  13. "The Flying Club Cup" - 3:05

[edit] Videos

The whole album has been shot by La Blogothèque in Brooklyn. Each track filmed as a Take Away Show, available on the site of the album, flyingclubcup.com

[edit] Cover

The cover photograph of the album is believed to be Guaymas, Sonora circa 1930.

[edit] Personnel

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pitchfork: Beirut's Condon Talks New LP, Obsession, Exhaustion