A Study Of Losses

A further example of his fluency in the ancient, internationally shared languages of wonder and imagining. [Apr 2025, p.36]

As a whole, only one of the 18 tracks here crosses the four-minute mark, so A Study of Losses' hour-long playing time seems to go by quickly, and its unceasing sweetness and longing linger after Condon is "Left to be/A sea of tranquility" ("Mare Tranquillitatis") to close a lovely theater project.

Condon’s latest LP under his Beirut moniker is his most ambitious and rewarding project to date. A Study of Losses is a high-concept LP executed with careful precision by an empathetic poet hellbent on injecting his views on longing and loss into these poignant displays of folksy chamber pop bliss.

A Study of Losses has some of Condon’s most effortless songwriting in years, melodies flowing with the easy appeal of the best of Lon Gisland and Gulag Orkestar.

Employing church organs, baroque instrumentation, modern synths, brass, and ukulele, Condon delivers Beirut’s seventh album of an exhaustive, 18 tracks. .... The standouts are “Villa Sachetti” with its clavier-like finger-strumming over the best of Condon’s mournful lilt, the “Elephant Gun”-era echoes on jaunty “Tuanaki Atoll,” the hint of a love story folded into the slowburn, melancholy of “Caspian Tiger,” and the freshness of outlier “Guericke’s Unicorn.”

A Study of Losses is not for the casual listener. It’s an impressive feat, not the least of which is Condon’s sophistication as a musician and composer. It’s both less and more than one might expect when considering the demands of Beirut’s commission. As a standalone entity, the album works quite well, but it really shines as an artistic statement.