Realpeople: Holland aka Beirut March of the Zapotec disc II

I bought this disc at a Beirut show in Brooklyn a couple years or more ago and naturally listened to the two included EPs on the ride home to Boston.  The Beirut portion of this two EP set found it’s way into my stereo a few more times after that but the Realpeople disc was never listened to again. That is until today.

For those not in the know, prior to Zach’s discovery of Balkan jams, he apparently had this band Realpeople that relied on synthesizers and for some reason he put together an EP for this release, possibly to prove he wasn’t just a one trick pony or perhaps he thought he had some songs laying around that didn’t fit the Beirut mold or maybe he just missed synthesizers.  It’s probably safe to say that I’ll probably never listen to it again. While it’s not a bad disc, it doesn’t do much to warrant more attention than as just a curiosity.  Basically it’s a Beirut record with different instrumentation and as the disc progresses it becomes more and more exactly like a Beirut record with the addition of horns and accordions while the more synth reliant songs just wind up making me wish I was listening to Sebastian Tellier instead.  They actually wind up sounding like dance mixes of Beirut songs more so than a separate project altogether.  Not sure what he was going for with this release, but he probably could’ve saved the label some dough with the fancy packaging and just released the single EP and included the songs that were exactly like Beirut and had a stronger release.