“Celestial 天上” are a Hong Kong based collective who have produced a series of four albums:
“Spirit House”, released 1996, “Happy
Valley 快活谷”, 2001, “Hong Kong Dub Station 香港
空轉”, 2004, and “Electric Road 電器道” just released in 2007.
Celestial was conceived by Peter Millward, a partner in Drum Music, where the last three Celestial albums have also been recorded. The first Celestial tracks were released in '92, and although they pre- dated the concept of “chill-out” or “down- tempo” music by several years, the idea for “Celestial” was born: a laid-back mix of Asian sounds over an empyreal electronic dubscape. Pete, who produces, arranges, mixes, plays guitar, bass, melodica, and keyboards, plus programming and various other bits of audio manipulation, is a long time Hong Kong resident, with his musical roots in the Punk and Dub Reggae of the ”70s. Indeed the term “dub” as referred to here, has more in common with masters such as Dennis Bovell (Blackbeard), Lee “Scratch” Perry and Scientist, than with modern Electronica.
Musicians who have been involved in Celestial over the years include; Sunny Yeung - shakuhachi master, Eugene Pao - Asia's top jazz guitarist, Hsin Hsiao Hung - Hong Kong's #1 erhu player, Sur Sudha - the musical ambassadors of Nepal, Eddie Chung - also a partner with Pete @ Drum Music and now producer and deejay with Hong Kong‘s hottest rap group 24 Herberts, plus vocalists Angelita Li, May Chan, Mariella Gonzalez, Adrian Da Silva, Rita Tsang, LiYa, Elaine Liu and many more. Occasional visitors to the Celestial Studio (Hong Kong’s #1 music production house: Drum Music) have included Welsh rapper John Griffiths (of Llwybr Llaethog), Mandarin rapper Antonius Chen, deckmeister DJ Bodhi, percussionist (and Drum's
architect) Johnny Kember and Zheng virtuoso Choy Kit Yee. More info and images available here>.
The Celestial sound can also be heard in the production Pete has recently done on the debut album from reclusive London-based songster Shamus Dark, and live dub band The Bass Cadets. Pete spends his days writing music for TV commercials (and anything else) at the company he set up with Eddie Chung (Producer of 24 Herbs), Drum Music Limited. Well it beats working for a living.
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June 23, 2008
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