Celestial 天上
 

Biography

Celestial 天上 are a Hong Kong based collective who have produced a series of five 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”released in 2007, and the fifth album, "Cloud Songs" released in 2009.

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 of 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.

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Music

Cloud Songs
2009
Dub-Art-Pop - a double CD of songs from Hong Kong, that sound like Scott Walker or Edith Piaf singing Jacque Brel or Jimmy Webb, arranged by Philip Glass or Massive Attack and mixed by Lee "Scratch" Perry.
CD: $15.97 MP3: $13.99
Reviews
0
 
Electric Road 電器道
2007
Asian, dubbed-up, chilled-out, subterranean electronica.
MP3: $9.60
Reviews
3
 
Hong Kong Dub Station 香港空轉
2004
the third album and finest album yet from Celestial, Hong Kong's masters of Asian Dub: - East meets West, Hong Kong to Jamaica, via Tokyo and Kathmandu...
MP3: $12.80 CD: $12.97
Reviews
1
 
happy valley 快活谷
2001
asian dub - an alluring mix of virtuoso oriental instrumentalists in a contemporary dubscape; good enough for Café Del Mar...
MP3: $12.00 CD: $12.97
Reviews
2
 
Spirit House
1996
the first album from Celestial, Hong Kong's ambient dub masters: - it's empyreal and exotic, East meets West, dreamy Asian electronica.
MP3: $12.00 CD: $12.97
Reviews
4
 
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