Creating Congratulations

Few bands will ever find themselves in the position Congratulations is currently in.

Despite having no recordings to its name and not having played a single show with its full lineup, the 12-piece folk orchestra is already nearing the top of the massive cloud of buzz surrounding Portland’s music scene.

Expectations are high, theories are being tossed around and the general level of excitement is rising around a group that is paradoxically holed up in its practice space, ignoring the tide of gossip as it focuses on crafting its first batch of songs.

The band owes this notoriety not to obtuse Internet marketing or even to a stroke of profoundly dumb luck. Rather, Congratulations can trace its current reputation back to the extraordinary history of Eskimo and Sons, a band that a year ago made an announcement that shocked Portland music scenesters across the board. It was at that point that Eskimo and Sons, then one of the Northwest’s great rising stars, announced that it was wholly disbanding, casting off its well-established name to reform as Congratulations.

“A lot of people told us not to do it,” says Dhani Rosa, lead songwriter for both Congratulations and the late Eskimo and Sons. “I thought about it, I wondered what it would do, but I don’t think about it that much anymore. I think it’s taken off enough now as far as its own deal.”

The deal he refers to is not so much a stylistic diversion from the ethereal folk masterpieces of Eskimo and Sons but a reimagining of that aesthetic through a new lens, a lens so removed that it has required Rosa and company to change their basic approach to the music they make.

“It was an artistic decision,” says Rosa. “It was based on wanting to write a little differently and play a different kind of way. And kind of a mood thing too, something that represented a general change in mood or enthusiasm or attitude.”

With Congratulations, that mood has developed quickly and is still pulling more members into the warp and weave of the group’s aesthetic. Recently they have found backup singers in Nelson Kempf and Keeley Boyle of Old Believers, acquired a top-notch horn section and developed plans for adding a series of woodwinds. This is an ambitious slate for a band just starting out of the gate, but to hear Congratulations tell it, their rapid development has merely been a consequence of their desire to make the most of their songs.

“It’s a musical thing,” says Rosa of the group’s expanding membership. “I’m writing songs that just need as many people as I can. And we know enough people that can play a wide enough array of stuff that we just have the resources to do it.”

And the group is wasting no time in ensuring that this reformation is used to the maximum possible effect. Rosa, along with Kempf, is starting work on a new label that will release both Congratulations’ and Old Believers’ upcoming LPs. Brave Records, as the venture is currently known, is an extension to Kempf’s Fine/Romantic imprint and marks a break from Eskimo and Sons’ previous label, Boygorilla Records, that is emblematic of their newfound direction.

“I feel like with the new label and the new band there was kind of a rethinking of how we want to present the music and how we want to make it available to people, and how we just kind of wanted to do a new thing entirely,” says Clayton Knapp, bassist for Congratulations.

Though Congratulations has yet to make a formal debut, exploratory performances from the group have indicated that the band is moving towards the extremes of folk and electronica that were hinted at by Eskimo and Sons. Congratulations’ music is more confident than its predecessor and approaches these poles with a giddy enthusiasm central to the group’s impromptu transformation.

“I feel like I spent a lot of time in weird places when we were in Eskimo and Sons,” says Rosa, “where sometimes it wasn’t as fun as it probably should have been. But now it’s like we’re gonna really try to do something.”

A split 7-inch with Old Believers and an accompanying tour this August will be the first appearance from Congratulations after it emerges from a summer of rehearsals. However, the expectations being placed on their debut are not weighing on the minds of Congratulations’ 12 members as they craft their new project. Much like the unexpected change in name, the group shows willingness in all its doings to follow the collective instinct that has led it to this point.

There’s a refreshing trust in Congratulations, and not just between the members themselves but in the music they make. It’s a trust that has been able to unite these musicians and guide them into acts such as abandoning a meteorically rising band at its zenith without batting an eye. As lead singer Danielle Sullivan puts it:
“I think if people like the music enough then they’re gonna hear about it and they’re gonna like it just the same.”