Albums of the Year 2025: #94

Beirut's seventh studio album, A Study Of Losses, is a musical project by Zach Condon.

The album originated in spring 2023 when Viktoria Dalborg, director at the Swedish circus Kompani Giraff, approached Condon to provide music for their next project. The show was based on an adaptation of a novel by German author Judith Schalansky.

The main themes in Schalansky's book and the adaptation for the circus show revolve around the concept of loss and the impermanence of everything familiar to us. This includes extinct animal species, lost architectural and literary treasures, and more abstract ideas of loss through the aging process.

In a close collaboration, A Study Of Losses evolved into an unexpected piece of music. With 18 songs and nearly an hour in length, it is the largest album Beirut has ever produced. It is also considered some of their most beautiful work to date.