This EP is a labor of love. It is the product of a group of friends who helped me make it & a group of fans, strangers, and friends who helped me fund it. I have decided to put the album up here and let you decide what its "worth." If you have it, please leave a "tip", and if you can't, you can still help the cause by sharing the link to this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and via email so that I can keep making art and pursing what I think is beautiful. Thank you so much for finding my music and supporting the arts. This EP "A Beautiful War' is based on an adapted quote from Brothers Karamazov "The perception of Beauty is the battlefield on which God and the Devil rage for the soul of man." What do you think is beautiful? Why? What does that mean?
Carl Dylan was born in South Africa.
Due to political unrest his family moved to Zaire with the intention of relocating to America. After Carl's father secured work in Knoxville, TN he returned to Zaire to collect the family; however the government refused to allow Carl's father to return to the States with his family. In spite of this obstacle, the family's local church spirited Carl's father out of the country, hiding beneath a blanket in the back of a taxi. A few short months later, the church, and its community members collected funds necessary to assist the family (Carl, age 9, his mom and his two younger twin brothers, age 7) to escape to the United States and join their father.
While Carl was attending Oglethorpe University in 2002, he picked up a guitar and a pen, on a whim, and soon discovered his gift as a musician and singer/songwriter. His passion for song writing has continued to grow with each newly learned chord.
Each time Carl takes the stage, it's as if a dear friend, or a beloved relative, has walked into your living room, sat down on your couch, and has begun to share lyrics with you that speak directly to your core. Words move around you, calling you to action. His intentional lyrics to love deeper, fight harder, and chase with more fervor fix audiences to their seats, encouraging them to feel the words as their own.
Carl's witty commentary during performances keeps the audience engaged, while enhancing the intimate, familiar, yet unexplored tone of Carl's songs.
Carl lives just outside of Atlanta, Georgia with his wife & mini horse Sava. He has shared the stage with local singer/songwriters Paper Lights, Kurt Scobie, and Mondo Davis.
Influences such as John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Damien Rice, David Gray, and The Civil Wars have lead Carl to create a sound unique to him, yet that has a quality of desirable familiarity emanating from within each melody.
When Carl isn't in the recording studio or performing you can find him staring longingly at the Ben and Jerry's shelf in the freezer section of his local grocery store, or fervently cheering on his favorite soccer team, Manchester United.
His new album released in 2011, A Beautiful War. It has been met with rave reviews and is based on a quote from The Brothers Karamazov that says,