CELESTIAL SON
Danish trio whose third long-player is touched by the hand of a prog demi-god.
“IT WAS THE greatest moment of my life, except for the birth of my son,” Rasmus Sjøgren tells Prog, remembering the email he received back in 2020. The Copenhagen-based songwriter is recalling the moment when he asked Porcupine Tree/The Pineapple Thief/King Crimson percussion maestro Gavin Harrison to play on one of Celestial Son’s latest tracks.
The composition in question, Fakir, is a brooding synthwave meditation recalling Depeche Mode at their most malevolent, which breaks down into a more nervous rhythmic stutter before building to a powerful polyrhythmic crescendo thanks to the guest player’s contribution. Harrison would end up contributing to four of the 11 tracks on current album Planetaria, all thanks to a shared acquaintance – visual artist and longtime Steven Wilson collaborator Lasse Hoile. Sjøgren’s fellow Dane has made videos and done photo shoots for Celestial Son for some years now, and was party to Celestial Son’s frontman and chief songwriter’s ponderings over a possible real-life drummer to replace some of the electronic percussion on the record. “I said, sort of as a joke, ‘Imagine if we had Gavin Harrison on there,’ and Lasse said, ‘Well, why don’t you ask him?’”
Harrison liked the music and agreed to contribute, but although this sprinkling of stardust lends the band a well-deserved PR boost, in truth the sounds created by Sjøgren and bandmates Jeppe Pradsgaard Holm and Nicklas Pedersen needs no big-name associations to captivate any fan of widescreen electronic rock.
Although Sjøgren formed the band at school in 2003, under the name Drone, their less-than-prolific but skilfully crafted output has reached a new creative peak on Planeteria. It’s less riff-based and grungeinfluenced than the band’s previous release, 2015’s
Saturn’s Return, and more in the vein of 2019’s single
Lithograph, but its electronic textures are more bewitching in nature on the likes of Avian Heart (also featuring Harrison), which evokes the image of a boy communing with the birds and the wider universe on the roof of his house, in keeping with the album’s overarching theme of each song being a snapshot of its own world.
“Every song has its own planetarium. That might be the building of sorts, and you can have the images of the sky and the stars up on the ceiling in different ways,” says Sjøgren.
Meanwhile, Sjøgren’s vocals sometimes recall the softly emotive croon of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis. “Glad you mentioned that,” he says. “I love them!”
For a group that on the face of it fit the familiar prog profile of unremarkable-looking white men in black T-shirts, Celestial Son also look after the visual side of what they do pretty effectively. Sjøgren’s friendship with Hoile has led to several videos over the years, including one for this album, featuring Fakir interpreted by Danish champion breakdancers Nuke_N_Sive in a one-take routine. The band themselves are no slouches in directing their own clips, too: Lord Of Karma is particularly striking, as Sjøgren sings into a mic that seemingly descends from the heavens, as if he’s somehow communing with the gods.
“We had a drone and a simple, fun idea,” he says, “and I’m actually surprised no one else seems to have done anything similar.”
And that approach is reflective of Celestial Son’s overall approach: it’s not that complex or wildly original, even with a skilled technician like Gavin Harrison on board. Yet despite reminding us of various disparate acts at different moments, they ultimately sound like no one else.
“I SAID, SORT OF AS A JOKE, ‘IMAGINE IF WE HAD GAVIN HARRISON ON THERE…’”