I don't believe in the fake magic of Pandora, so I go about new shit the old-fashioned way... I accidentally find out about it by hanging around some other dude. I was at my man D's t-shirt shop one evening, for whatever reason, and he was playing on some Gogol Bordello, and we got to talking about real gypsy music, or wacky world music done with indy rock flair, and he hipped me to Firewater, which led me to fuck around and look up other crap, and somehow I ended up discovering this Beirut shit, which is basically one kid from New Mexico who made himself a group after travelling to Europe and what not. On one hand, I want to playa hate on some kid who gets to wander the world and indulge his musical fetishes, let it steep around inside his brain, and then reconstitute it as some musics for the hipster world. But on the other hand, I enjoyed the shit on this album, and I hardly ever enjoy white people music made after 1991.
I do not know the idealogy behind what a gulag orkestar is or isn't is, but I assume in a more perfect world it involves dudes who have pointy and thick facial hairs who like to buy sausages from corner stores that have whole pig heads in the front window. I guess the "gulag" part conjures up dead jewish people, so it's probably some sort of statement against something terrible that went completely over my head, because I don't actually pay attention to lyrical content in anything shorter than a 24-line rap verse, so it just seems like good-feeling out there old world influenced modern musics to me. I've also had a fascination with east Europe lately, I think missing my dead ass grandpa, who was the son of Polish immigrants and would talk about the demon spirits the old ass seafaring Polacks used to talk of, or maybe I'm just a stupid fucking dumbass. Hard to say; probably a healthy splash of both. But it's a song I apparently enjoyed, and it was played with regularity on my gaypod and now was on this list and I had to write about it. And I think I've done just enough.
STEAL "Gulag Orkestar"
NEXT UP: Mellow ass country rap goodness so chill you don't notice the humidity!
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