Little Beirut

Little Beirut, not to be mistaken for Zach Condon’s Eastern European-influenced indie collective Beirut, emerged as a quartet based in Portland, OR. The group adopted its moniker from the nickname that former president George Herbert Walker Bush gave the city after demonstrators interrupted a presidential photo opportunity during his term. While the band sometimes incorporates a political slant—most notably on the ballad “Love During Wartime,” an ironic love song to George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from their debut album—its core identity rests on sweet-natured, jangly, melodic indie pop.

Although the quartet officially assembled in 2004, lead singer Hamilton Sims and guitarist Edwin Paroissien had already performed together since the mid-’90s across multiple earlier projects. After a four-year hiatus during which Sims finished graduate studies, the pair reunited and cut the self-released 2005 demo Permanent Kiss as a duo. Bassist Jon Trause and drummer Alex Inman were later brought in to round out the lineup, enabling the band to begin work on its first proper album alongside Portland indie-scene figures co-producer Chris Robley and mixer Jeff Stuart Saltzmann. Robley’s horn, string, and keyboard arrangements expanded the previously spare indie-pop textures, and the finished record High Dive appeared in early 2008.