Beirut

A young American's Balkan brass band

Zach Condon, the young man behind Beirut, after dropping out of college (on the first day, he walked straight to the office and asked for his money back) stayed with a cousin for a while in Amsterdam in a building where "a weird Serbian artist guy" blasted Balkan brass music from his top-floor apartment, driving his neighbors batty -- and providing the spark for what would become Beirut's "Gulag Orkestrar." (Released on Ba Da Bing!)

The upstairs neighbor "was miserable and he was really homesick and he was playing this really homesick music,"
The rest is history

Official site

Postcards from Italy



"Elephant Gun"



Nantes




Gulag Orkestar