Beat Circus
Dreamland
Cuneiform Records (www.cuneiformrecords.com)
On their latest recording, a carnival concept album that would make Tom Waits beam with pride, avant-eclectic collective Beat Circus crafts off-kilter songs about the bizarre tales surrounding Dreamland, a turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned down in 1911. Most of the music is composed by vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Brian Carpenter, who is joined by a small chamber orchestra of sympathetic collaborators. The resultant ensemble features instruments of antique vintage or weird extraction: theremin, jaw harp, pennywhistle, etc. Traditional tunes such as “Angel Eyes” and “El Quinto Regemiento,” as well as tropes on folk musics (“Slavochka” and “Torero”) are incorporated along the way. “The Gem Saloon” and “Coney Island Freak Show” refract merry musical mayhem and dystopian lyrics through the funhouse mirror that is Carpenter’s twisted but abundantly imaginative muse.
-Christian Carey
Entries (RSS)