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How A Skateboard Accident Changed The Shape Of Beirut's Latest Record

Beirut
Olga Baczynska
/
Courtesy of the artist
Beirut

A chance accident performing a simple skateboard trick changed the shape of the latest Beirutrecord, Gallipoli. What was supposed to be a recording session in New York City ended up happening in Berlin and the result is a different set of songs that retain that signature Beirut sound. Yes, there are a lot of locations referenced in titles — it's one of band leader Zach Condon's signature flourishes.

"The city names kind of started as a joke, actually," Zach says. "The joke used to be trying to write a romantic song about the most unromantic place I could think of."

It's ironic because even though Zach writes some of the most beautiful songs you'll hear, he'd just prefer you pay attention to the music before the lyrics. He explains in this session. Hear it all in the player.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).
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