Beat Circus’s Dreamland  had a lot to live up to; I really enjoyed the carnivalesque insanity of their debut album, Ringleaders Revolt, and Dreamland features a roster of musicians drawn from some of my current favorite acts: members of Antony and the Johnsons, Humanwine, Golem! and Luminescent Orchestrii all make appearances on the record.  Nevertheless, Dreamland met my expectations and more.  Whereas Ringleaders Revolt was a wild extravaganza of bigtop tunes, Dreamland strays to the seedier back alleys of the side show.  Inspired by the Coney Island theme park of the same name, Dreamland captures the melancholic, haunted Americana atmosphere of a darkly-tinged turn-of-the-century.  Using an impressive array of instruments—how often does the electric zither get deployed?—Beat Circus rework a distinctly American mythos, drawing on the dissipated grandeur of Brecht and Weill, urban gothicism, and midway cabaret.  By turns utterly familiar and shockingly inventive, Brian Carpenter and co. take us for a stroll through the freak show, and it is entirely worth the price of admission.  Roll up!

There are no comments yet. You could be the first!