Beirut - A travelling band's search for calmer waters

Beirut's Zach Condon found acclaim for music drawn from global influences, but the new album is more personal. He tells Chris Mugan about his desire to settle down

Relaxing in his Manchester hotel room, Zach Condon is clear his questing days are behind him. Even though he is enjoying a free day on the second leg of his European tour, the driving force behind Beirut admits he lacks the stamina to repeat the explorations that led to the group's distinctive sound.

He has developed a cult following by fusing indie rock with more exotic flavours – Balkan brass, Mexican folk – based on his excursions. Having dropped out of school at 16, he has jammed in Paris with Serbian musicians and joined Mexico funeral bands, but those days are gone. "I have to rest between gigs now," he sighs. "I got really sick back in New York after the last tour, as if my body's waiting 'til I come off the road. I need rules now about how I go about things."

Condon has always been a delicate touring musician, suffering exhaustion and pulling out of a European tour in 2008, but limiting his excursions has allowed him to reap dividends in his recording process. After gaining acclaim and support for ventures into global musicianship, he has turned the focus to the artist's writing and working with his established band. The resulting album, The Rip Tide, is his most cohesive work for a while and most accessible set of songs.

Each Beirut release so far has been tied, by his label as well as critics, to particular locales. Condon made a splash in 2006 with a debut album, The Gulag Orkestar, which helped popularise the sound of East European Gypsy troupes. He cemented its success a year later with The Flying Club Cup's infusion of French chanson, completed at Arcade Fire's studio in Quebec. His last release, the first on his own Pompeii Records, came in two parts – March of the Zapotec was based on his trip to Mexico's Oaxaca region, but came packaged with the synth-led set Holland.

This reading of his output so far irks Condon. "It's funny how things are presented," he responds wearily. "It's an easy path to follow and it's true I have those influences, but in my head it's not where things were going. There were issues I was going through and things I was into. Instead, I was given a career and people wondered where I was going next, though that was never the point."

Since Zapotec/Holland, personal changes have steered Condon away from searching for the next sound. He has got married, settled down in New York and got a dog. The avowed free spirit had moved to upstate New York to write in peace, but was missing companionship when he saw an advert for puppies. "I felt lonely and beagles are the cutest dogs," he remembers. "Getting a load of beagles together in the snow for the photoshoot reflected what was going on in my head. I'd been living out of suitcases since I was 17. I wanted an adult life and to put down roots. New York always seemed the most obvious destination for me. Musically and socially I don't fit in there, but I don't mind that. I'm friends with a few bands, like The National and Dirty Projectors, but we don't get put together as part of the same scene."

Condon disavows the idea that previous records were shaped more by outside influences than his own writing, but he was keen to take a different tack on his new album. "There is no location, no image to connect with this album. When I started out I was impressionable and wanted to try different things, but here I had to tell myself to trust my writing – and things have come out more naturally."

Two tracks stand out. "East Harlem" shows his gaze has returned from foreign shores to the area around him. A lyric about getting across town to meet his love on time includes the line, "Another rose wilts in East Harlem" – a nod to the fabled bloom in Ben E King's "Spanish Harlem". "My Dad introduced me to doo-wop and that era of music, so I wanted to write something in that style, even though it came out somewhat different."

He also revisited the city where he grew up on the deceptively perky "Santa Fe". "It's about time I mentioned something about the place where I'm from, so I put myself in my teenage mind, when I was full of contradictions. The weirdest thing is that Santa Fe is steeped in tradition – it's touristy, lots of people from the south-west visit, and there's the Hispanic and Native American culture – but I still didn't fit in. The only place I felt at home was this cinema I worked at which only showed foreign films – Emir Kusturica and the like."

There is a guest slot on The Rip Tide for the violinist Heather Trost, from the duo A Hawk and a Hacksaw. Trost and Jeremy Barnes shared Condon's love for Gypsy brass and helped shape his early career. He admits it was different working with her again, but it helped him appreciate what his mentors did for him. "It is different now we can trade funny tour war stories. I can see how they took me under their wing, when before I didn't have a clue and didn't care. They sat me down and straightened me out." Without them, Beirut might not have got off the ground, yet Condon is still glad he doesn't fit in anywhere. "Knowing who I am, it just wouldn't make sense," he laughs. "I don't know what I'd do with that amount of power."

'The Rip Tide' is out now on Pompeii Records. Beirut play Brixton Academy, London, tonight