Celebration

Husband-and-wife duo Sean Antanaitis and Katrina Ford have made music together for well over a decade, dabbling in artsy hardcore with Jaks, nearly gothic drama rock in Love Life, and organ-driven Latin lounge in Birdland. In 2005, however, the pair enlisted Love Life drummer David Bergander and emerged as Celebration,...

By Eryc Eyl

November 15, 2007

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Husband-and-wife duo Sean Antanaitis and Katrina Ford have made music together for well over a decade, dabbling in artsy hardcore with Jaks, nearly gothic drama rock in Love Life, and organ-driven Latin lounge in Birdland. In 2005, however, the pair enlisted Love Life drummer David Bergander and emerged as Celebration, a tribal cabaret act with close musical and personal ties to TV on the Radio. The innovative outfit's eponymous debut juxtaposed urgent, raw performances with Ford's versatile and quirky vocal delivery. This year's followup, The Modern Tribe, is a more tightly controlled and richly orchestrated — but no less energetic — collection of noisy, beat-heavy bizarro rock. The complexity and diversity of Tribe appears to be the apotheosis and amalgamation of a long-shared musical history. While Ford's vocals and Antanaitis's multi-instrumental contributions are the undisputed centerpiece of Celebration's sound, it's impossible to ignore Bergander's hip-wriggling polyrhythms or the numerous contributions made by producer/collaborator/TVOTR mastermind David Andrew Sitek. The ensemble's unhinged artistry and unpredictable musical mood swings make the Celebration experience invigorating, intriguing — and a little intimidating.

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