Beirut – Hadsel review

As many of our horizons have narrowed in the last few years, Zac Condon’s search for new inspiration has kept him moving. This restlessness caused a stint in Berlin to record his last release Gallipoli, whilst at the beginning of 2020 he set off for the isolated crop of Hadsel, an island at Norway’s fringe, a destination which became less temporary as the pandemic took a grip.

Situations for the most part are what you make of them however and despite the confinement a chance meeting with a fellow organ enthusiast named Oddvar opened up a world of new musical possibilities. Writing in near solitude and awed by the power of both nature and the landscape, Hadsel was also shaped by the effects of what the singer has described candidly as “stumbling blindly through my own mental collapse that I had been pushing aside since I was a teenager.”

This doesn’t make for bleakness though, the opening title track a bygone sounding throwback to some monochrome era, whilst Melbu’s dolorous accordion and the wistful Arctic Forest are clear homages to a specific place and time. At it’s peak on The Tern and So Many Plans, Condon’s safe navigation through such a literal and metaphorical buffeting are uplifting and like throwing off a fog, travel in whatever circumstances it seems broadening the mind whilst healing it too.

You can read a full review here.