Celestial Songs

Album: Celestial Songs
Artist: Downes Braide Association
2023 Cherry Red Records Ltd.
CD: DBA-CD-06

Geoff Downes: piano, keys, programming
Chris Braide: vocals, piano, keys, programming
Dave Bainbridge: electric & acoustic guitars, mandolin, bouzouki, keyboard solo (3)
Andy Hodge: fretted & fretless bass
Ash Soan: drums (on all tracks where there are drums, except 1)
Tim Weller: drums (1), additional drums (9, 10)
Barney Ashton-Bullock: narration
Marc Almond: duet vocal (4)
Francis Dunnery: arpeggio guitar (3)

Produced by Braide/Downes
Additional engineering by Tom Hough (4, 6, 7)
Mixed by Braide
Mastered by Jason Mitchell
Paintings, lettering and logo by Roger Dean
Computer work and layouts by Michael Inns
Management: Martin Darvill/Maria Lundy at QEDG
Publicity: Sharon Chevin/Billy James
Project management by Lundy, assisted by Valentina Pianezzi/Samrah Ashworth/Sophie Tucker/Ellie Schwartz

Tracks:
LP 1, side A:
1. "Look What You Do" [Braide/Downes] (6:17)
2. "Clear Light" [Braide/Downes] (5:01)
3. "Keep on Moving" [Braide/Dunnery/Downes] (6:36)

LP 1, side B:
4. "Darker Side of Fame" [Braide/Downes] (3:56)
5. "Hey Kid" [Braide/Downes] (3:29)
6. "Will to Power" [Braide/Downes] (6:24)

LP 2, side A:
7. "Heart Shaped Hole" [Braide/Downes] (9:06)
8. "Dear Petra" [Braide/Downes] (3:57)
9. "On the Run" [Braide/Downes] (5:10)

LP 2, side B:
10. "Goodbye to You (Sister Shame)" [Braide/Partridge/Downes] (7:31)
11. "Beyond the Stars" [Braide/Downes] (10:21)

Notes: DBA's fifth studio album, Celestial Songs was released 8 Sep 2023, the title continuing the band's love of alliteration. Formats included a limited edition box set with CD, vinyl and exclusive signed art print (DBABOX06); a gatefold Digipak CD (DBACD06); a gatefold 2LP (DBALP06); and digital. The album is dedicated to Alan White and David Longdon. Spoken word segments (1, 3, 4, 7) were by Ashton-Bullock.

"Clear Light" was the first promo single, follow by "Keep on Moving" and then "Look What You Do", all coming with videos. (3) was also on a digital sampler album available through Prog issue #142 (Aug 2023). (4) was announced as a subsequent single instead of (3) in the original online trailer to go up, but that was very soon replaced by a second version of the trailer. The album made #7 in the UK rock & metal albums chart, #10 in the indie breakers album chart (albums by artists who have not yet made the top 40), #27 in the indie album chart, #63 in the album sales chart, and #60 in the physical albums chart.

The band finished making the album in Apr 2022. The band's Twitter account wrote on 31 Jan 2022 that, "Chris and Geoff are back in the studio adding the finishing touches to some amazing DBA tracks. Roger Dean is being kept busy too." Hodge said on Facebook on 12 Apr 2022:

The latest DBA album is nearly ready! [...]
I’m overjoyed to be playing bass on yet another fabulous collection of songs [...] this time deploying even more basses including: Fender Precision, Warwick Thumb V, Musicman Stingray 4-string fretted and 5-string fretless, and Squier Jazz fretless all make appearances; Rotosound strings, EBS MicroBass 3, various Boss pedals, and a smattering of Avid plug-ins all engineered by my good self in the comfort of my home studio.

The band's Twitter account said 31 Mar 2022, "We have just had the mix and master back from our engineer." Downes said in a May 2022 interview with Yes Music Podcast that the release would come around Sep/Oct 2022. In a late Jun 2022 tweet, he said they were looking at Oct 2022 for a release. Bainbridge said in Jul 2022 that the release would be Oct/Nov and explained vinyl manufacturing backlogs were causing a delay. These later delayed the album further, into 2023. In Jan 2023, the band shared pictures of test pressings of the vinyl album. On 22 Feb 2023, they announced:

Thank you all for being so patient for updates on the next DBA album.

We have moved the release date towards the end of the year [2023], but pre-orders will be available in a few months time.

Dean did live sessions painting the cover on Facebook, from 1 Feb 2022; he finished the cover on 15 Mar 2022. His design is on his 2023 calendar.

Most of the performers return from the band's previous album, Halcyon Hymns, including guest singer Marc Almond and narrator Barney Ashton-Bullock. In an interview with Prog magazine, Braide explained that Dunnery had come in to work on another project of Braide's, but his guitar contributions didn't fit. However, Braide said, "I thought they were great. So Geoff and I wrote the song around that lick, and it really makes the song." There are also songwriting credits for Andy Partridge, who guested with DBA previously. Partridge helped finish the lyrics for "Goodbye to You (Sister Shame)". In an Aug 2023 interview with Yes Music Podcast, Downes said Celestial Songs is not a concept album, but that there is "a continuity" to the lyrics. Downes described "Darker Side of Fame": "It tells a story, a theme that a lot of people, and a lot of musicians, can relate to – certainly musicians that have had any kind of success. The lyric is very poignant, whilst you have all the glory, the accolades and the adulation, it can go away and you're left with nothing. It reflects life in general, I think, as people go through all kinds of ups and downs throughout their careers and throughout their lives." About the album generally, he said, "There's a lot of variety on the album [...] We were aiming to get quite a bit more dynamics into this album because there were some very quiet pastoral moments." Braide described the album: "As we were writing the songs for the album, they started to become thematic in emotion and feeling[.] More classic rock than the predecessor Halcyon Hymns. The songs were about life and death, time, love, nostalgia, spirituality." He said about "Beyond the Stars" that it "was a tune that began in 2015 and really shaped the way the artwork was to develop. Something bigger than us, something astral and heavenly, it grew from a 3-minute ditty to an 11-minute epic." He also said they came up with the album title in 2020.

On Facebook, Braide said he had the verse melody for "Clear Light" and nearly all of the lyric in 2015, but no chorus. Downes then came up with a chord progression in a "weird" time signature. The lyric is about "ego and how it can blind you to the beauty of things". "Beyond the Stars" is another song begun in 2015. In a later Facebook post, Braide talked about "Will to Power", saying the verses and more were written during the writing of Skyscraper Souls, but they felt the song didn't fit on Skyscraper Souls or Halcyon Hymns. He also said the middle section of "Heart Shaped Hole" was by Downes, while the rest of the song, he said in another interview, he wrote some years ago. "Dear Petra" is based on a piano melody from Downes; Braide's lyrics were originally about child abuse, but were then re-written to be about the war in Ukraine. "On the Run" was described by Braide as being influenced by the band Talk Talk. "Goodbye to You (Sister Shame)" is "about trying to find love before you die", Braide said in an Aug 2023 band interview; Downes is on Hammond at the end. "Beyond the Stars", Braide said in another Aug 2023 band interview, "[i]s about how everything must pass [...] but it's not maudlin".

Braide and Marc Almond were planning to perform "Darker Side of Fame" at a joint live show in Nov 2023, and possibly further material from the album. In another Sep 2023 interview, he said they would also do "Warm Summer Sun". DBA hoped to play live, but had not announced any dates at time of writing. (HP, 29 Jan 24)

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