Beirut releases "Geuricke's Unicorn" into the world ahead of new album

A Study Of Losses is set to debut on April 18.

Beirut releases
Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste

Indie outfit Beirut has announced its latest project, a new album entitled A Study Of Losses debuting April 18. The record has an interesting backstory: Zach Condon was commissioned by the Swedish contemporary circus company Kompani Giraff to create the new music, which itself is based on German author Judith Schalansky’s novel Verzeichnis Einiger Verluste. Many of the tracks coincide with chapters of Schalansky’s book, named for some of the world’s most infamous losses (the disappearance of a noted text or an extinct species, for instance). On Thursday, Beirut premiered one such track with the “Geuricke’s Unicorn” music video.

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,” according to an album press release. “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 sounds and ideas that draw upon one of his all-time favorite records, the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs.”

Beirut previously released the first single from A Study Of Losses, “Caspian Tiger,” in late 2024, in addition to announcing the band’s first tour in six years. (Ticket information can be found on the band’s website.) The album is being released via Condon’s own label Pompeii Records. It comes less than two years after Beirut’s last album, Hadsel. You can check out the full track list below. 


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

 
Join the discussion...