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OLD SAYBROOK — The Slambovian Circus of Dreams will return to Connecticut for its first show of 2022 at the Kate on Sunday as they present their sixth album, “A Very Unusual Head.”
“We were mixing the album when COVID hit. The whole album has to do with thinking outside the box and that’s how we can really solve our problems,” said Tink Lloyd, who plays accordion, cello, theremin and flute in the band.
Josiah Longo, singer and songwriter for the band, who’s married to LLoyd, said the songs are about finding ways to bring people back together, especially after the isolation of the pandemic.
“During this pandemic, we’ve longed for each other and we realize the value of each other, so a lot of the music’s about that — about seeing each other and embracing with this new reset button we’ve hit. It’s all about what can we do different and better, instead of arguing about who’s right or wrong? What can we do that’s new and better?” he said.
The album name is a reference to Syd Barrett and his biography, “An Irregular Head,” and has been described as less Americana and more Anglophile.
“But it’s also a tip of the hat to people who look at reality and think you can adjust it, you can change it, you can make it more. It’s about everybody who thinks outside of the box and thinks of a way to create something new that can be better for all of us, that can be more inclusive,” Longo said.
Lloyd said the album was inspired by their tours in England in 2014. During COVID, the band’s English tour was postponed twice, but this year they’re heading to Fairport’s Cropredy Convention in August.
While on tour the band will lean toward songs from the new album but will include some classics and favorites, especially for longtime fans.
“It’s been two years since we toured or three years since anyone has seen us. This is a return to touring as we’ve known it— we haven’t seen anybody in so long,” Lloyd said.
She said that in 1999 the band put out its first album and almost moved to Connecticut.
“We were really looking to move to Bridgeport because it’s the home of the P.T. Barnum Circus and we thought, hey, this kind of goes with us,” Lloyd said.
Many of the band’s first performances were at venues around Bridgeport and at the Stony Creek Puppet Theater in Branford. Sunday’s performance feels like coming full circle, Lloyd said.
“We have a large, very loyal, close fan base in that part of Connecticut — that was a real Slambovian stronghold in the early days and we had a lot of champions there,” she said. “So we’re really happy we’re going back and marking the spot with our first show of 2022 in Connecticut.”
It’s a hopeful album, she said, and the show will be a shared experience with the fans.
“We do projections for each song, it will be stuff that’s beautiful, a little psychedelic, something that really creates a more immersive show for people — we’re giving them a movie for their mind,” she said. “Our songs do that but we’re giving them a little enhancement too.”
Tickets: Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook, 860.510.0453