Today, Zach Condon, front man and creator of indie rock band Beirut, announced his new record A Study of Losses would be released on April 18 via Pompeii Records.

To celebrate the new record's announcement, Condon released new single "Guericke's Unicorn", with an accompanying music video featuring shadow puppetry and acrobatics directed and performed by Kompani Giraff. Watch/listen to the new song below:

This record was commissioned by the Swedish circus Kompani Giraff for an acrobatic stage production of the same name, according to a press release. The circus premiered their show on September 10, 2024, and they are still performing it live, according to their website.

A Study of Losses is Beirut's most expansive yet: consisting of eleven songs and seven extended instrumental tracks, the 18-track record takes inspiration from choral arrangements, Renaissance-era music, and indie rock to reimagine Judith Schalansky's 2018 German novel of the same name (Verzeichnis einiger Verluste).

The new single takes the name of a famous 17th-Century skeletal "reconstruction" of a unicorn. With the skull of a rhinoceros, the horn of a narwhal, the legs of a woolly mammoth, and the combination of other fossilized bones, German scientist and mayor of Madgeburg, Otto von Guericke, awkwardly stuck these parts together to make what he believed to be the body of the mythical creature.

"I’ve always been fascinated by these kinds of bizarre chapters and odd side notes of history," comments Condon in a press release, "and I wanted to reflect the unorthodox/eccentric madness of that ‘unicorn’ in a more playful song that is somewhat disjointed from the rest of the album."

While the rest of A Study of Losses may be "uniformly baroque inspired," according to the artist, "'Guericke’s Unicorn' really makes for an outlier on this record, having its origin in an old modular synth experiment of mine.”

"Guericke's Unicorn" is the second single off the new Beirut album, following the November 2024 release of "Caspian Tiger".

A Study of Losses is out April 18. Preorder here. Full tracklist below:

1. Disappearances and Losses
2. Forest Encyclopedia
3. Oceanus Procellarum
4. Villa Sacchetti
5. Mare Crisium
6. Garbo’s Face
7. Mare Imbrium
8. Tuanaki Atoll
9. Mare Serenitatis
10. Guericke’s Unicorn
11. Mare Humorum
12. Sappho’s Poems
13. Ghost Train
14. Caspian Tiger
15. Mani’s 7 Books
16. Moon Voyager
17. Mare Nectaris
18. Mare Tranquillitatis

Condon will also be taking A Study of Losses on the road for Beirut's first tour in six years. He will begin with a brief tour across Europe and the UK this upcoming May, accompanied by new and returning ensemble members of the band. The dates can be found below:

05/01 Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg Grote Zaal
05/02 Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg Grote Zaal
05/05 Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
05/06 Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
05/08 London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
05/09 London, UK @ Troxy

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