Zach Condon announces the release of the his most challenging Beirut album to date, dropping April 18th on his own Pompeii Records, A Study of Losses is an 18-track odyssey commissioned by Swedish circus Kompani Giraff, for an acrobatic stage show of the same name. As a free interpretation of Verzeichnis einiger Verluste, the novel by German author Judith Schalansky, A Study of Losses journeys through eleven songs and seven extended instrumental themes, named after the lunar seas and inspired by the chilling tale of a man obsessed with archiving all of humanity’s lost thoughts and creations. Like Verzeichnis einiger Verluste, A Study of Losses finds Condon writing about disappearance, preservation and the impermanence of everything known to us–extinct animal species, lost architectural and literary treasures, the process of aging and other abstract concepts. But musically, he is re-immersed in choir, renaissance and other early styles that have inspired his work, as well as variations of 2025 sounds and ideas that draw upon one of his all-time favorite records, the Magnetic Fields’69 Love Songs.

“Guericke’s unicorn is a supposed reconstruction of a fossil unicorn which was actually createdfrom the bones of a bunch of different animals like the wooly mammoth and a narwhal. It’s worth looking up the image.

I’ve always been fascinated by these kinds of bizarre chapters and odd side notes of history,and I wanted to reflect the unorthodox / eccentric madness of that ‘unicorn’ in a more playful song that is somewhat disjointed from the rest of the album. I think my music can have that disjointed / chaotic tendency in general, but with the whole album otherwise being some what uniformly baroque inspired, ‘Guericke’s Unicorn’ really makes for an outlier on this record ,having its origin in an old modular synth experiment of mine.”-Zach Condon.

Following half a decade spent recovering from persistent throat issues and impending mental collapse–leaving him questioning whether he would ever perform in front of an audience again–A Study of Losses arrives on the heels of Hadsel, which marked “a new beginning for Beirut,” ” Where as Hadsel was centered around a towering, antique church organ that Condon discovered during a dark arctic winter in Northern Norway,A Study of Losses is brightened by string quartets and arrangements from cellist and “No No No” collaborator Clarice Jensen.Written and recorded by Zach Condon in both Berlin, DE and Stokmarknes, NO, with the album’s roots spanning Sweden and Germany,A Study of Losses also expands the wide world that he has built through the music of Beirut, ever since he first began the project as a curious and itinerant 14-year-old.”When I was first approached about writing a soundtrack for a circus, a certain amount of ‘Elephant Gun’ era trauma initially came rushing up,”as Condon explained, when sharingA Study of Losses’“Caspian Tiger”at the end of 2024.“I had been pigeon-holed for years as a whimsical circus waif, full of sepia-toned images of penny farthings and perhaps lion tamers with handlebar moustaches. It couldn’t have been further from how I pictured the music I was making. Ironic then, that I found Kompani Giraff’s project so enticing.”WhileA Study of Losses begins another stretch of performances this week, transcending both concert and theater, Zach Condon will soon return to the road for Beirut’s first tour since 2019.From May 1st-9th, Condon will be backed by a new and returning ensemble of band members, playing sets that span Beirut’s discography andA Study of Losses. Venues include Netherlands’ Tivoli Vredenburg, Belgium’s Cirque Royaland the UK’ s O2 Academy Brixton.

Beirut
A Study of Losses
Tracklist

Disappearances and Losses
Forest Encyclopedia
Oceanus Procellarum
Villa Sacchetti
Mare Crisium
Garbo’s Face
Mare Imbrium
Tuanaki Atoll
Mare Serenitatis
Guericke’s Unicorn
Mare Humorum
Sappho’s Poems
Ghost Train
Caspian Tiger
Mani’s 7 Books
Moon Voyager
Mare Nectaris
Mare Tranquillitatis

Beirut Tour Dates

May 1
Utrecht, Netherlands
TivoliVredenburg
Grote Zaal

May 2
Utrecht, Netherlands
TivoliVredenburg
Grote Zaal

May 5
Brussels, Belgium
Cirque Royal

May 6
Brussels, Belgium
Cirque Royal

May 8
London, UK
O2 Academy Brixton

May 9
London, UK
Troxy

Order A Study of Loses HERE