My two favorite things – music and history – it’s not often that those two come together in modern music, at least not outside those gnarly old folk-punk bands and their love of sea shanties and marching songs, who are great at keeping the past alive. But, as soon as “The Battle of Brooklyn” kicks off, you realize that Circus Mind is neither a gnarly old folk-punk band nor a straightforward historical narrator. They are better than that.
What is great about this single is that it takes a historical image, that of the first military encounter in the American Revolutionary War, and uses it as an analogy for the rapid gentrification of that borough in the modern age. It is a fight not against redcoats but against redevelopment —a battle fought not over tax demands but rent hikes, one to save the familiar and the affordable in the face of a wave of bodegas and boutiques, penthouses and parlours!
Musically, they fight another sort of revolutionary struggle, one to overthrow creative complacency and the musical mundane; their weapon is a deft blend of jazz-infused grooves, rock energy, and funky rhythms, enough to repel the borders, especially if those borders are well-to-do, second-home, weekend visitors.
It’s a reminder that even in peacetime, there are battles to be fought, homes to be defended, and wherever we walk, we are walking on a rich past; even in a relatively young country like The USA you should tread carefully as you walk over the bones of ancient hunter-gatherers and the settlements built by puritan escapes from Europe, the musket balls of colonial battles and the trappings of Civil War combatants. And, hopefully, too, the paperwork and planning permissions of those looking to redesign such historical locations will soon be trampled underfoot!
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