Send "Celebration " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Since early 2009, the Baltimore-based cabaret-punk trio Celebration have been posting tracks from their new record, Hello Paradise, as free mp3s on their website. Donations are encouraged, but not required. There is no record label advance funding the project. A friendly-looking smiley-faced ying-yang symbol sits to the side of the screen, surrounded by the words, "Be cool. You make it worth our while." It's one thing to throw fortune to the digital winds if you're a well-established arena-rocking band like, say, Radiohead. For Celebration-- who have a much more modest following-- financial and business incentives are less obvious. But listening to the completed Hello Paradise, the creative payoff is clear.They tried it the traditional way first. Celebration released two albums-- 2005's Celebration and 2007's The Modern Tribe-- on major-indie 4AD. But four years of grinding tours, press cycles, and sales expectations withered Celebration's zeal. "They offered a contract re-negotiation and we declined," frontwoman Katrina Ford told the website Rockin' the Stove last December, explaining the band's decision to leave label's roster. "For us, in the end, the benefits did not outweigh the cost. The whole business bummed me out." Stepping off of the music biz treadmill-- and giving up the exposure it promises-- gave Celebration the space to become a better band, distribute their music on their own, and to take their time doing it. Unsurprisingly, Hello Paradise is Celebration's most laid-back work to date. Songs unfurl at a measured pace, riding head-bobbing rhythms and bluesy riffs through a low psychedelic haze. Their last record, The Modern Tribe, was soaked in trippy textures. Producer Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio)-- brought forth headshop vibes by the bucketful. In every empty nook and cranny, a set of wind chimes tinkled. As a result Celebration-- a herky-jerky and energetic live band-- came off flat and one-dimensional....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| When a band like Celebration releases music for free, they trust their audience to engage in other ways: going to shows, buying merch, and talking the band up to friends. If this is to be a sustainable business model in any way, the band had better be sure they can stand behind their material. Abandoning 4AD for their latest release and then coyly dropping free downloads and videos around the internet in advance of Hello Paradise, Celebration have taken that massive leap of faith. Fortunately, between the nine stuffed-to-the-gills tracks and all that the corresponding tarot cards signify, rarely does an album contain so much to chew on. These nine tracks are the first wave of the Electric Tarot project, a set of songs for which each corresponds to one of the 22 major arcana tarot cards. I used to get annoyed when all my arty friends would talk about their latest musical “projects.” The word seemed awfully pretentious for what would invariably turn out to be five minutes of fuzzy noise or some retro throwback. But given the nine tracks’ scattered release and the fact that they constitute the first wave of a unified idea, “project” is maybe the only formal moniker that fits. We’ve come a long way from rigid definitions of artistic form — sonata it ain’t — and the idea of collecting each track from where it’s been deposited online almost adds to the experience like… well, card collecting. Celebration have always been masters of grandiloquent textural shifts. On The Modern Tribe, that skill (not to mention singer Katrina Ford’s anxious wailing) kept their undeniable love of psychedelia from seeming stale or quaint. Here, it allows them to explore several different interpretations of each tarot character within each song; eye of newt, hock of sitar, gammon of bass. “What’s This Magical,” an homage to “The Shaman” card, moves along mysteriously, underpinned by Bollywood-esque strings, swelling with the titular line on a major 6th chord, the one comfortably major sonority in the song. With those salients, the sitar introduction and other detailing is less bewildering — their bigger ambitions are enabled largely by very careful compositional craft....full text |
| 402productions |
| There seems to be a disconnect trying to manifest itself in the music scene, more so lately than other apparent tries. On top of strong grassroots indie labels sprouting out of the woodwork, newer ideas seems to be popping up left and right as far as putting bands and artists who are putting out actual albums are concerned. For instance, many artists are taking the shuffle-playlist generation to heart and putting out smaller releases in forms of EPs and splits. Other bands are still putting out some crazy long concept albums. The Smashing Pumpkins are noted for releasing something like a 40-song album for free over the next few years. As far as Celebration is concerned, Hello Paradise, their latest release seems to be following this same tread. They are releasing some sort of tarot card tie-in with their release, with this release of Hello Paradise being their initial seven cards related to their tarot card theme. However, does this gimmick withstand the integrity of the music scene?...full text |
Celebration lyrics
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