By DCist contributor Joelle Seligson

Zach Condon, a multi-instrumentalist from Albuquerque, has named his band Beirut. His debut album is called Gulag Orkestar – an invented orchestra of the Soviet slave labor camps – but he doesn’t sing in Russian. And though he’s a 20-year-old musician (with underground fame to spare), he didn’t dub himself after a drinking game. Condon’s Southwestern roots are a most unlikely origin for a band where Balkan folksongs and gypsy caravans stomp out any trace of dusty desert dronings. But, considering the warm reception Condon’s received in blogs worldwide since his album premiered in May 2006, it seems he’s become a cultural attaché for… everywhere.

Rumor has it that Condon ditched high school at 16 for a more hands-on educational experience, field-tripping aimlessly through Europe. Indeed, the album serves as an audio backpacking tour, drawing countless comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and illuminating countries like Slovakia and the Netherlands as Sufjan Stevens has done for Michigan and Illinois. He also incorporates several of Stevens’ signature musical quirks – layered harmonies, odd tempo changes and the use of as many unusual instruments as possible (did somebody say “glockenspiel”?).

The excursion kicks off with the album’s title track, a blend of shuddering instrumentals that folds into a piano-driven death march. Lovely day trips are offered to hear the traipsing mandolins, trumpets and tambourines of “Brandenburg” and “Rhineland (Heartland).” The accordions of “Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)” waltz forlornly toward a resounding choral finish; the unique variety of orkestar that performs “Postcards from Italy” could set even the most destitute wanderers’ toes to tapping. Add to the pot a Morrissey-esque croon that belies Condon’s age by at least a generation, and you’ve got a borscht to make any Russian mother proud.

Catch Beirut at The Warehouse Next Door on August 23 to get a taste of Condon’s inimitable worldview. $10, 8:30 p.m.

Photo from Beirut’s website, by Ben Chrisman