press room

U.S. publicity contact : Howard Wuelfing

Europe publicity contact : Joyce Nalewajk

PRESS QUOTES

"Boston's circus of malcontents not only has the chops but features a fallen hellfire preacher/band leader (the captivating Brian Carpenter) who simultaneously channels Nick Cave and Johnny Cash. " -- Shawn Bosler, Village Voice

"Boy From Black Mounain is the prettiest darn dark Americana record in recent memory." -- Barry Thompson, Boston Phoenix

"For anyone still awed by Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, here was an album that promised a similar journey through innocent speculation and otherworldly magic. Beat Circus has provided one of the highs of the year. " -- Richard Elliot, Pop Matters

"Creating something that falls in line with some of the best material from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds or Angels of Light. “Boy From Black Mountain” provides another fine example of a band revitalizing traditional folk music without resorting to any post-something-or-other gimmickry, just great songs and great playing. " -- David Perron, Foxy Digitalis

"The music and the wonderfully well-realized arrangements of Dreamland are, if anything, better than on the band's debut...the stylistically varied results make for a wonderfully imaginative record." -- Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

"Dreamland truly functions as a smorgasbord of the early twentieth-century music heard in both the old and new worlds. Carpenter possesses both vision and skill at execution in abundance." -- Michael Meade, Skyscraper Magazine

"Beat Circus has created a singular intriguing sonic identity by filtering certain bizarre old-time American and European pre-jazz styles through a progressive contemporary fearlessness" -- Weekly Planet

"Beat Circus evokes a period so distant that it might seem like a Dreamland, transporting listeners to a world that's alluring and eerie." -- Mark Jenkins, Washington Post

"Dreamland realizes a lushly imaginative American mythology...a surreal melange" -- Time Out New York

"Beat Circus could be the house band for the dark carnival in Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, its full-length CD Ringleaders Revolt the accompaniment to some faded old black-and-white cartoon..." -- Scott Harrell, Creative Loafing

"Dreamland is an ambitious new Brechtian concept album with rich and tight orchestration..." -- New Yorker

"Their narrative songs evoke cabaret, Wild West saloons, circus sideshows, and Old World gypsies...but the prodigious musicianship and stylistic miscegenation is all modern; the results, refreshingly entertaining." -- Sean Fitzell, All About Jazz New York

"A jagged-edged, tightly-structured, nearly big-band form of bluegrass, they were the highlight of the night's music, with layers of sound packed with wit, energy, and dead-on musicianship." -- EDGE Boston

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Photo by Dave Bias

Photo by Liz Linder

Cover illustration by Carson Ellis

Cover illustration by Brian Dewan