Trust in the Adventure of Chance

Baltimore’s Celebration posted a “manifesto” on their band site stating that from that day forward they would release all of their music in mp3 form for free! Apropos for my "Earth Day" post, their decision was based partially on conservation stating, “So, past the piles of broken CD cases and badly scratched polycarbonate rainbow discs, there lies a fantastic world of freedom—freedom to share instantly with little or no impact on the environment, in a seemingly infinite, eternal and virtually cost free universe of the world wide web.”

But as the ozone continues to dissipate, the reality is that sales of tangible CDs are waning. It is heartbreaking and, this is especially interesting to me, as I first found Celebration back in 2005 via an mp3 download. I loved the song so much that soon after I purchased their self-titled CD and was impressed that 4AD had signed yet another intriguing band (see my post about them in January 2006). I love 4AD, I love my CD collection but I have noticeably purchased a smaller quantity of music over the last year and a half. I will continue to seek out mp3s, of course, and when I’m excited by a song or two that I find, I will likely still try and find that shiny disc for purchase.

Celebration plans to upload new songs as they make them and offer them for free download. They also affirmed that they “strongly encourage you to blog, podcast, email and share links to our music and our site with others”. They want to share their art in a non-commercial way and they also are excited about remixes and further said, “We will post stems in the near future for remixing. If we like your remix, we will post it on our site.”

Currently two fantastic songs are available, and I’m excited to hear future tracks:

Celebration – I Will Not Fall :: mp3::

Celebration – What’s This Magical :: mp3::

Like 50 Foot Wave did in 2006, Celebration will be providing free downloads but do encourage contributions. Help them to free themselves from the “danse macabre of the promotional corporate machine”. They want to be “free to release [our] music when and how [we] want—no waiting. We know nothing of the marketing world and don’t care about the vampires anymore.”

Celebration Band Site and Blog
Celebration MySpace