[review]
American band Beat Circus’ 2008 album DREAMLAND is an accomplished blending of klezmer, free-jazz and popular music. Several tracks on the album deserve to be mentioned: the opener track, Gyp The Blood, is a mix of “crockery” music and orchestra, plunged into Balkan and gotic atmospheres; the rhythm of The Ghost Of Emma Jean is marked by violins and guitar and a decadent and amused cabaret chorus; Hypnogogia recreates a horror mood thanks to distorted chorus and violins, while the evocative Delirium Tremens is an extravaganza made of drums, violins, synthesized voice and a chorus of deportees singing the album’s title in a saloon haunted by ghosts. The old Europe explodes in the feast of Slavochka, perhaps the masterpiece of the album, rocked by orchestra and revolutionary chorus, gipsy air and a rhythm in rapid change. Rhythm is crucial to The Gem Saloon as well, where the ghost saloon turns into a magic place for the histrionic singer and his sirens while a drunk guitar completes the picture. Coney Island Creepshow and Hell Gate seem to come from a Tim Burton’s movie or Tod Browning’s FREAKS,while Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland e March Of The Freaks close a brilliant work that started into a spooky saloon, continued into a freak circus and ended outside into a madcap fair.
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