We had the opportunity to enjoy Celestial Shore's geeky pop madness live when they opened for Ava Luna during the launch party of our Winter 2012 issue about one year ago. The band operates along disorientating lines, juxtaposing gorgeous harmonies reminiscent of The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" to inconceivable bursts of baroque math-prog madness. The streaming single "Valerie" - from the band upcoming album, to be released in April - is yet another example of this band's quirky talent, and almost matches their masterpiece track, "Pals" - hopefully also to be included in the upcoming release. Celestial Shores' quirky pop - as long as the crazyness doesn't get out of hand - is one of the best new expression of a fun avant-pop genre that has been flourishing among nonconfirmist college students since the late 80s, and that has in Ween, They Might Be Giants and Beck its most illustrious predecessors. Don't miss their show at 285 Kent on February 24.

We added this song to The Deli curated Soundcloud playlist of Best NYC songs by emerging NYC artists - check it out!

The day Celestial Shore will decide to write a pop song that's just... THAT, our world will become a slightly better place. These LA/Brooklyn based guys - who played our 29th NYC issue party at Mercury a few weeks ago with Ava Luna - have an outrageous melodic talent, but choose to deform their celestial melodies with avant/progressive experimentation (something they can actually pull off thanks to their noteworthy instrumental skill). Which is still a lot of fun, but fill us with laughter and regret at once. - Read Dean Van Nguyen's interview with the band here.

Deli followers,

After Thursday's sonic awesomeness at Pianos, The Deli has another show scheduled for Friday February 24 at The Mercury Lounge - it's our 29th issue party! We'll have four deli-ghtful bands, including Ava Luna of course, who graced our latest issue's cover (you can read the issue in pdf format here).

Check out their music streaming below, and join us on Friday if you wish.

8.00 - CINDY LOU GOODEN (ex-Very Fresh)

---

9.00 - DARLINGS

---

10.00 - CELESTIAL SHORE

---

11.00 - AVA LUNA

The Deli's Staff

Uuuuuh... we like this combination of words: "playful psych pop with an experimental edge". That's our attempt at describing the music of Brooklyn based band Celestial Shore. These guys follow on the bizarre and elaborate "avant-pop" steps of acts like Dirty Projector and Deerhoof, with a slightly "mathy-er" approach, and vocal melodies and harmonies that will get Beach Boys fans excited. The way "Pals" - a perfect pop gem - gets truncated and pretty much sacrificed as a "song" to the god of experimentation might irritate the many pop purists out there. Instead, it makes us smile with complicity. Boring song structures are for later in life... 
Check out Celestial Shore with Body Language live at Glasslands on July 1st and at Shea Stadium on July 14.