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.
Largely recorded and produced by the band itself, Hello Paradise dials in the sonic soup at the right time, rather than all the time. "Battles" uses a sparse intro to springboard into explosive, Zeppelin-worthy, Eastern-tinged riffage. "Shelter" builds from a stripped-down ballad into a wave of cheapo-synth-string romance. The anxious pummeling of the group's self-titled debut is long gone. Organist/guitarist Sean Antanaitis and drummer David Bergander play looser but more methodically, throwing themselves fully into the record's reverb-drenched crescendos.
But Ford makes the greatest breakthrough on Hello Paradise. Ten years ago, fronting Love Life-- her former band with Antanaitis-- she was a brutish stage presence, dressed in giant black boots, grunting like a linebacker with a zeal for Nick Cave. On Hello Paradise Ford is, undeniably, a singer-- pushing the music forward, using melodic embellishments to amp up the drama. On "Junky" she howls and warps words into strange shapes. But she's also gained confidence at conveying tender, guarded emotions. Ford can be forceful and delicate, frequently within the space of the same song.
And it doesn't hurt that she sounds more defiant. "I won't lay down and I won't play this harp anymore/ Odds are stacked/ Some love can bring you back/ If you choose," sings Ford on "I Will Not Fall". With little hope of prolonging their career through traditional means, Celebration had nobody but themselves to please with Hello Paradise. And, somehow, that seems to have set the bar higher.
