The Vorstand Circus are the band project of Melbourne, Australia-based musician Jason Allen.  Currently the only member, Jason is seeking musicians to complete the line-up.  The Vorstand Circus's first album, "Sworn In On A Stack Of Dictionaries" was written, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered entirely by Jason on a PC in the second bedroom of a small apartment in Bern, Switzerland.

Jason found himself living in Switzerland when his wife's employer transferred her job to Bern.  A lifelong composer and musician, Jason seized the opportunity to spend three years writing and recording material to exploit on his return to Australia. After more than 18 months of writing, recording and trialling material on his friends via the Internet, he released his self-titled debut alternative pop album on Cafepress in November 2004.  It earned extensive airplay on Australian independent radio, 44 Reviewer's Pick awards from Garageband.com, and has been picked up on a non-exclusive basis by American independent record company Open Heart Records.  It is available on iTunes in all territories except Japan and Australia.  Two of its tracks ("An Eloquent Testimony" and "Early Morning Wake-Up Call") are also available as individual downloads from indienetunes.com.  The entire album can be streamed from www.beatgroover.com/allen.

Encouraged by the success of his first album, Jason sought to stretch himself by attempting something completely different on his second.  The Vorstand Circus, named from Peter Carey's book "The Unusual Life Of Tristan Smith", saw Jason's first forays into personal, confessional song writing; an attempt to open old emotional wounds and try to capture them on an album.  It also saw Jason challenge himself to synthesise the sound of a real band on a cheap PC, limiting himself to the tonal palette of piano, accordion, guitar, bass and drums.  The result is "Sworn In On A Stack Of Dictionaries", brooding on the themes of xenophobia and fear, while simultaneously exorcising the memory of an old friend in a surreal, exaggerated language rich in disturbing imagery.

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