Beat Circus
Encyclopedia
Beat Circus is a band from Boston, Massachusetts fronted by multi-instrumentalist / singer-songwriter
Brian Carpenter
, who has been its only constant member since its inception.
, modern classical, cabaret
, circus music
, Appalachian string music, bluegrass music
, old-time music
, Southern Gospel
, and funereal music. Since 2005, Carpenter has been developing a "Weird American Gothic" trilogy of concept albums, starting with Dreamland
.
moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts
and formed a collaboration with tenor banjo player Brandon Seabrook, which led to the first incarnation of Beat Circus, originally named Beat Science. Aided by saxophonist Jim Hobbs, drummer Jerome Deupree, accordionist Alec K. Redfearn
, tubist Ron Caswell, and musical saw player Leigh Calabrese, the group was a contemporary free improvisation instrumental ensemble which used circus music
as a jumping off point. After a summer-long residency in Cambridge in 2003, Carpenter recorded the band's first album Ringleaders Revolt which was subsequently released by Innova Records
in 2004.
, a 150-page through-composed score for nine musicians containing songs based around a stage play treatment of a story involving the turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned in a devastating fire in 1911. Dreamland began a shift away from instrumental music to narrative songs about children, dreams, fatherhood, revenge, and redemption. To develop the Dreamland score, Carpenter formed a second incarnation of Beat Circus with drummer Matt McLaren (a long-time collaborator of Cuneiform Records
label-mate Alec K. Redfearn), Kaethe Hostetter from Boston, cellist Julia Kent
of Antony and the Johnsons
, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, saxophonist Briggan Krauss of Sex Mob, and original members Alec K. Redfearn, Ron Caswell, and Brandon Seabrook. In 2006, Carpenter enlisted New York City
-based producer Martin Bisi
to record and mix Dreamland in Brooklyn. Dreamland was released on Cuneiform Records
in January 2008 and announced as the first installation in Carpenter's "Weird American Gothic" trilogy.
. After coping with this, Carpenter began writing a song cycle for the second part of the afore-mentioned trilogy, entitled Boy From Black Mountain
. With the departure of Alec K. Redfearn and Matt McLaren, who wished to focus on their band The Eyesores, Carpenter formed the third incarnation of Beat Circus in 2007, casting himself as the lead vocalist with violinist Paran Amirinazari and violist Jordan Voelker as background vocalists, and introducing a rockabilly
-style rhythm section composed of upright bassist Paul Dilley, guitarist/banjoist Andrew Stern, and drummer Gavin McCarthy of Karate
. In fall 2008 Carpenter enlisted producer Sean Slade
to record Boy From Black Mountain in Boston. In December 2008 New York City-based producer and engineer Bryce Goggin
was brought on to mix the album. Boy From Black Mountain marked yet another shift in direction, inspired by Carpenter's Southern heritage, Southern Gospel
music, bluegrass music
, and Southern Gothic
writers, and was released by Cuneiform Records
in September 2009. In early 2010, Boy From Black Mountain
won the Independent Music Award for Best Alt/Country album.
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Brian Carpenter
Brian Carpenter (musician)
Brian Carpenter is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and radio producer. He is the lead singer and songwriter for the Boston, Massachusetts band Beat Circus. His primary instrument is the trumpet. He also leads the Ghost Train Orchestra in New York City...
, who has been its only constant member since its inception.
Musical style
The band's songs are characterized by lush arrangements, eclectic instrumentation, and Carpenter's lyrical themes of love, death, religion, and American mythologies. The music draws heavily from several disparate genres including experimental musicExperimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, modern classical, cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
, circus music
Circus music
Circus music is any sort of music that is played to accompany a circus, and also music written that emulates its general style. The most common type of circus music is the circus march, or screamer, which are marches played at very fast tempos...
, Appalachian string music, bluegrass music
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, old-time music
Old-time music
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...
, Southern Gospel
Southern Gospel
Southern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
, and funereal music. Since 2005, Carpenter has been developing a "Weird American Gothic" trilogy of concept albums, starting with Dreamland
Dreamland (Beat Circus album)
Dreamland is the second studio album by American band Beat Circus. It was released on January 29, 2008 by Cuneiform Records, and shares its title with the turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned in a devastating fire in 1911. The album is a 150-page score for 9 musicians composed...
.
Early years and Ringleaders (2002-2004)
In 2001 Brian CarpenterBrian Carpenter (musician)
Brian Carpenter is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and radio producer. He is the lead singer and songwriter for the Boston, Massachusetts band Beat Circus. His primary instrument is the trumpet. He also leads the Ghost Train Orchestra in New York City...
moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
and formed a collaboration with tenor banjo player Brandon Seabrook, which led to the first incarnation of Beat Circus, originally named Beat Science. Aided by saxophonist Jim Hobbs, drummer Jerome Deupree, accordionist Alec K. Redfearn
Alec K. Redfearn
Alec K Redfearn is a musician and composer based out of Providence, Rhode Island. He has composed music for dance, theater, and film. His primary instrument is the accordion...
, tubist Ron Caswell, and musical saw player Leigh Calabrese, the group was a contemporary free improvisation instrumental ensemble which used circus music
Circus music
Circus music is any sort of music that is played to accompany a circus, and also music written that emulates its general style. The most common type of circus music is the circus march, or screamer, which are marches played at very fast tempos...
as a jumping off point. After a summer-long residency in Cambridge in 2003, Carpenter recorded the band's first album Ringleaders Revolt which was subsequently released by Innova Records
Innova Records
Innova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1982 as a way to document the winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the Minnesota Innova Recordings is the independent...
in 2004.
Dreamland (2005-2006)
In 2005, Carpenter steered the band in an entirely different direction with the development of DreamlandDreamland (Beat Circus album)
Dreamland is the second studio album by American band Beat Circus. It was released on January 29, 2008 by Cuneiform Records, and shares its title with the turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned in a devastating fire in 1911. The album is a 150-page score for 9 musicians composed...
, a 150-page through-composed score for nine musicians containing songs based around a stage play treatment of a story involving the turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned in a devastating fire in 1911. Dreamland began a shift away from instrumental music to narrative songs about children, dreams, fatherhood, revenge, and redemption. To develop the Dreamland score, Carpenter formed a second incarnation of Beat Circus with drummer Matt McLaren (a long-time collaborator of Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
label-mate Alec K. Redfearn), Kaethe Hostetter from Boston, cellist Julia Kent
Julia Kent
Julia Kent is a New York City-based, Canadian-born cellist who is best known as an original member of the all-cello group Rasputina, and later on as a member of Antony and the Johnsons....
of Antony and the Johnsons
Antony and the Johnsons
Antony and the Johnsons is a music group presenting the work of Antony Hegarty and his collaborators.-Career:British experimental musician David Tibet of Current 93 heard a demo and offered to release Antony's music through his Durtro label. The debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released...
, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, saxophonist Briggan Krauss of Sex Mob, and original members Alec K. Redfearn, Ron Caswell, and Brandon Seabrook. In 2006, Carpenter enlisted New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based producer Martin Bisi
Martin bisi
Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter.He is known for recording important records by Sonic Youth, Swans, John Zorn, Material, Bill Laswell, Helmet, Unsane, Cop Shoot Cop, White Zombie, Boredoms, Angels of Light and Herbie Hancock's Grammy-winning song Rockit,In 1979, Martin Bisi...
to record and mix Dreamland in Brooklyn. Dreamland was released on Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
in January 2008 and announced as the first installation in Carpenter's "Weird American Gothic" trilogy.
Boy from Black Mountain (2007-present)
In late 2006 near the completion of recording Dreamland, Carpenter's son was diagnosed with autismAutism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
. After coping with this, Carpenter began writing a song cycle for the second part of the afore-mentioned trilogy, entitled Boy From Black Mountain
Boy from Black Mountain
Boy From Black Mountain is the third studio album by Beat Circus. It marks the second release in songwriter Brian Carpenter's Weird American Gothic trilogy. Several songs on the album were inspired by Carpenter's response to his son's autism. Larkin Grimm provides guest vocals throughout the...
. With the departure of Alec K. Redfearn and Matt McLaren, who wished to focus on their band The Eyesores, Carpenter formed the third incarnation of Beat Circus in 2007, casting himself as the lead vocalist with violinist Paran Amirinazari and violist Jordan Voelker as background vocalists, and introducing a rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
-style rhythm section composed of upright bassist Paul Dilley, guitarist/banjoist Andrew Stern, and drummer Gavin McCarthy of Karate
Karate (band)
Karate was an American band, formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1993 by Geoff Farina, Eamonn Vitt and Gavin McCarthy. In 1995, Jeff Goddard joined the band as bass player, and Vitt moved to second guitar...
. In fall 2008 Carpenter enlisted producer Sean Slade
Sean Slade
Sean Slade is a record producer, engineer, and mixer. He has worked with artists including Hole, Radiohead, Warren Zevon, Juliana Hatfield, Dinosaur Jr., Uncle Tupelo, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Boo Radleys, Sebadoh, Lush, the Go-Go's, and The Dictators among others. In 2005 he produced The...
to record Boy From Black Mountain in Boston. In December 2008 New York City-based producer and engineer Bryce Goggin
Bryce Goggin
Bryce Goggin is a record producer and sound engineer. He began his career in the early 1990s working at Baby Monster Studios. He first received acclaim for mixing the album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by Pavement...
was brought on to mix the album. Boy From Black Mountain marked yet another shift in direction, inspired by Carpenter's Southern heritage, Southern Gospel
Southern Gospel
Southern Gospel music—at one time also known as "quartet music"—is music whose lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
music, bluegrass music
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, and Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot...
writers, and was released by Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
in September 2009. In early 2010, Boy From Black Mountain
Boy from Black Mountain
Boy From Black Mountain is the third studio album by Beat Circus. It marks the second release in songwriter Brian Carpenter's Weird American Gothic trilogy. Several songs on the album were inspired by Carpenter's response to his son's autism. Larkin Grimm provides guest vocals throughout the...
won the Independent Music Award for Best Alt/Country album.
Discography
- Ringleaders Revolt (Innova RecordsInnova RecordsInnova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1982 as a way to document the winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the Minnesota Innova Recordings is the independent...
, 2004) - DreamlandDreamland (Beat Circus album)Dreamland is the second studio album by American band Beat Circus. It was released on January 29, 2008 by Cuneiform Records, and shares its title with the turn-of-the-century Coney Island theme park which burned in a devastating fire in 1911. The album is a 150-page score for 9 musicians composed...
(Cuneiform RecordsCuneiform RecordsCuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
, 2008) - Boy From Black MountainBoy from Black MountainBoy From Black Mountain is the third studio album by Beat Circus. It marks the second release in songwriter Brian Carpenter's Weird American Gothic trilogy. Several songs on the album were inspired by Carpenter's response to his son's autism. Larkin Grimm provides guest vocals throughout the...
(Cuneiform RecordsCuneiform RecordsCuneiform Records is an independent record label based in Silver Spring, Maryland.The label releases a mixture of musical styles, including progressive jazz, modern fusion music, progressive rock, the Canterbury Scene and electronic music...
, 2009)