the differences in crystal castles IIare subtle, but the key advance made is one of generosity.
if crystal castles’s self-titled debut made it sound like pac-man was only half his then-nearly 28 years and wore down listener resistance by more or less reiterating their limited bleeps-n’-loops musical apparatus over a punishing 16 tracks, their follow-up is sophomoric only in the sense that it, too, is self-obsessedly self-titled. otherwise, the album is a pretty significant leap forward for the redolent electronic punk duo-cum-perpetual look at this fucking hipster fodder. they’ve moved on from huffing paint thinner to farting in your mouth while you are sleeping. the differences are subtle, but the key advance made is one of generosity.
which is not to say that they’ve given themselves a complete overhaul. though the atari blips are largely missing this time around, the retroactive (retro-passive?) synthetic sensualism and 13th-hour, fourth meal-fueled stamina are in full fettle. it’s just that this time they’re not juggling two game controllers at once. they’re too busy, judging by their softened song titles, gazing into the “celestica” skies, spending one “year of silence,” baptizing “doe deer,” offering “empathy” to those “not in love,” battling “suffocation” and “fainting spells,” and getting a “pap smear” in “vietnam.”
that last track marks one of the strongest and best departures from their earlier efforts; it’s a widescreen, temperamental, high-eq journey into the sonic battleground, with a bassline that whirs like helicopter blades, tinkling synthesizer lines sprouting like lamentations, and chopping on alice glass’s vocals that, for once, suggests something more ominous than mere effect. other highlights in gravitas include: “violent dreams,” whose airy michael mann atmospherics suggest alan braxe and fred falke’s ’80s revivalism; “not in love,” which bittersweetly refuses to resolve the tension in its progressions, storing heartbreak in those chord clusters like squirrels hoard nuts; and “year of silence,” with reverberating kicks, call-and-response vocal lines, and an Italo-chic synth countermelody straight out of legowelt’s “congo zombie,” pure grindhouse sophistication.
but with that sophistication comes a tradeoff. for as irritating and limited as their first album was in stretches, its driving intensity was undeniable. the whirring effects in “1991” were like every sound effect from williams’s “black knight” consolecompressed into two incredibly jacked-up minutes. at its worst moments, the album still gave off the impression of trying to dance under duress. there was a through line of strain just waiting for synthesis. in contrast, the superior but occasionally milquetoastcrystal castles: book twoinadvertently underscores the pitfalls of maturity and liberation.
there are only a few different types of songs on crystal castles’ intermittently exciting self-titled debut. for fun, and in honor of the fact that the band’s unique sound is derived from a synthesizer into which they installed an atari 5200 chip, let’s classify these song types with names that relate to some of modern teenagers’ favorite timewasters: wii, xbox, and huffing paint thinner.
songs in the key of wii are chiefly defined by being stupid, simplistic, and incredibly fun. tracks like “1991” and “black panther” cruise by quickly with minimal fuss and are pretty much exactly what you might want or expect from a band that actually tries to sound like a video game. there are a lot of ping-ponging keyboard melodies and stray laser beam noises, and lead singer alice glass’s vocals are often reduced to atmospheric background mumbles. though this shtick is kind of juvenile, it’s also winning.
songs belonging to the second category, like the stellar opener “untrust us” and “magic spells,” are much more sophisticated, and have conceptual underpinnings more complicated than “wave ‘em like you just don’t care.” they also tend to seem a little more expensive. nevertheless, this platform lacks a killer app; although these tracks are accomplished, the best of the lot, “vanished,” is essentially an excellent remix of the (better) song “sex city” by australian nü-wavers van she. and “magic spells,” for all the woozy depth of its production, is about three minutes too long.
it’s difficult to say whether or not this album would be much better had the band limited themselves to just these two styles. such a record might tend toward the soporific, whereas this one simply makes several loud, flow-disrupting mistakes. remember, kids, huffing paint thinner is always a bad idea. songs in this category make one nostalgic for the soothing sounds of atari teenage riot, whose name presaged crystal castles’ most zeitgeist-busting moments more than a decade ago. Imagine a video game console exploding in the face of a very peevish girl-punk at a happy hardcore party and you’re on the right track. granting that “alice practice” and “xxzxcuzx me” are perfect specimens of this kind of song, defined by as-always shiny production and audio shrapnel for days, they’re still quite irritating and certainly not good for one’s brain cells—even if you’re the type who enjoys the ranty screams of lead singers who cannot, strictly, sing.
where the rest of the album trades in cheap-sounding and eccentric but still rather charming variations on punky dance-pop, crystal castles’ most rockist moments seem to wish to appear arty by being as annoying as possible. it’s a tricky maneuver, and the fact that the group doesn’t quite pull it off screws up the coherence of this otherwise strong record, but that doesn’t make them any less promising.
(alice glass of crystal castles on stage in london, 2009. photograph: rachel bevis/rex)
the 8-bit electro-punk hipsters may no longer tour in a converted riot van with stab-proof wheels, but they're still on the defensive.
here's something you won't read every day: ethan kath from crystal castles is an extremely nice chap. if you've ever read anything about the world's new favourite toronto-born electro duo, kath is always – but always – presented as a grumpy, uncommunicative, passive-aggressive arse.
if "new rave" brought them to our attention, crystal castles have long since outlasted it. masters of what has become known as 8-bit, or chiptune,crystal castles build brilliant records from sounds you might find down the back of a games console. to date, nearly 8 million have watched five different crystal castles videos on youtube; this is a band so of the moment they've been on the soundtrack to skins more often than a squeaking bedspring. they are this generation's chemical brother and sister.
anyway, there's nothing even slightly grumpy or uncommunicative about the 28-year-old in a black hoodie and skinny jeans i meet in the banana-yellow offices of a 1,000-capacity nightclub in an unattractive suburb of milan. he apologises for his hair being odd lengths (apparently castles screamer alice glass cuts it when he's not looking). he tells me about the livestock and lack of windows on his grandfather's farm in calabria (the southern-most "toe" in the Italian "boot"). he tells me about the band's old van (a decommissioned riot squad vehicle with "stab-proof" tyres) and how he had to get rid of his first drummer when the tub-thumper's ruinous liking for cocaine derailed a huge show in tokyo. he tells me about how many links to illegal downloads of his new record there are on twitter. he tells me about how those links all lead to a version of the album that includes the wrong edit of future single, celestica. he has a lot to say for himself, all of it interesting, and each story is delivered with the same engaging, garrulous enthusiasm. when he offers to nip out and chase up glass – she's having a shower, having just woken up at 6.30pm – i think to myself what a pleasure it is to meet him.
so glass appears, hair still wet, beaming smile, couldn't be more charming, and we sit down for the interview. then something sort of hilarious happens. ethan kath slips into character and becomes "ethan kath out of crystal castles", someone who is, oh dear, quite capable of being a grumpy, uncommunicative, passive-aggressive arse.
i lob an easy one at him to start. tell me about the brain, i say, referring to the battered flight-case full of wounded, half-dead keyboards and old mobile phones that, apparently, provide a lot of the noise and vocal samples that the band use on stage.
"there's no such thing," - he replies with a face like a four-year-old who's just been denied a lollipop. and we're off! "maybe the crew call it that," he says, "but I don't. I'm not emotionally attached to any gear."
so if it all got burnt you wouldn't care?
"there are music shops in every city in the world," offers the man who has built a (well-deserved) mythology on the uniqueness of his sounds and is famous for his hatred of preset technology. "It's no big deal."
in an attempt to teasefriendly ethan back out of the woodwork i go for the least contentious question imaginable.
do your fans react differently in different parts of the world, i smile?
"no," he says, staring. "everywhere hates us the same." except, of course, they don't. outside this venue there are hundreds of young (and not-so-young) fans gathered hours before the doors open, and that's because crystal castles' new album – called, like their first, crystal castles – is a wonderful record that rides the noise/pop knife edge as well as anyone in the world. kath is a songwriter and producer of rare talent, someone who can write songs like celestica or year of silence that are so brilliantly melodic, so grippingly immediate, so joyously pop, that were they on the new kylie minogue album you would throw your hat into the air with the slightly edgy electro pleasure of it all. but he can also write doe deer or birds, pieces that are furious, experimental and abrasive. i am made of chalk sounds like he's shredded a vhs copy of infamous video-nasty i spit on your grave and randomly stuck the bits back together with home-made adhesive. it is both brilliant and terrible. kath is taking chances, and we are lucky to have him. he may, in fact, be the planet's funniest hipster. i certainly found him highly entertaining, i just didn't see the point of the sudden grump attack.
when kath and glass talk about how they came together as crystal castles in the summer of 2005 the room actually comes alive.
"shewas getting high all summer," kath laughs. "i found her on the street; she was higher than anyone i've ever seen in my life."
it's worth pointing out that, at the time, he was in a band with a heroin addict. as a child glass had been a real loner: someone who sat in the corner of her room and wrote "cheesy" poetry, who ran away from home at 14. when she began recording with kath she was just 17, had shaved off half of her hair and completed her look with a filthy eye-patch.
"this punk guy had the infection first," she smiles. "he then went around dabbing his germ-stained finger in everyone else's eye. i had it for three months."
kathsays she was so high that when he wanted to talk to her about the songs they'd recorded together glass would just say, "call me!" and make the phone-to-the-ear movement despite the fact that neither of them had a phone. they still don't, apparently. glass was living with a squeegee merchant called rosa who had a house in downtown toronto and split the rent between 20 people at $100 a month.
"there were a lot of drug punks there," she says. "they'd do really shitty things like heat up metal coat hangers and brand their skulls … "
it seems like everything's back on course, so i mention that what i really like about the record is how it goes noisy one, pop one, noisy one, pop one. that's great sequencing! silence. i move my feet to allow a huge ball of tumbleweed to blow past.
"maybe," says glass, eventually.
"i don't hear them as noise or pop," kath says. "all I hear is one bleak feeling that lasts an hour."
indeed. but year of silence is a big, bright brilliant pop song, i say. it doesn't sound particularly "bleak". interestingly, this may be the exact point where the ghost-like presence of nice ethan rises up from his mortal frame and boards a transatlantic flight back to toronto.
"that's actually insulting," he groans. "that's the opposite of what i was going for. i'm not trying to write pop songs at all. year of silence was something i imagined hearing at some shitty, small goth club."
the duo are playing all over europe on a pre-release tour for the new album, which is coming out on the same label snow patrol are signed to. they've played an nme tour sponsored by topman and they're appearing at the radio 1 big weekend. are these really the decisions of an unambitious band?
"yeah," mutters glass.
"of course," says kath. "because we have no ambition, yet we are in this position. there are 3,000 bands that deserve this more than we do."
no there aren't.
"you don't need ambition to play a show," says glass. "there's not a lot of effort needed … "
two hours later and the venue's full to bursting with goths, metalheads, indie kids, ravers and whatever the italian equivalent of mainstream, gig-happy teens are called. crystal castles' live show is a masterpiece of dark beauty. lit by a pair of brutal strobes they stick to the big-room tunes. glass twists and dives and crawls along the stage hugging a loose strobe to her belly. she is utterly captivating.
kath stands to her right, behind what looks like it might be the brain (except, of course, that doesn't exist), alternately punching out notes and beats, then strapping on a guitar. crystal castles are awesomely concise and effective, a rolling noise that will destroy all competition at any festival this summer.
a couple of days later i email kath to find out if his rather taciturn interview persona is actually all part of some larger crystal castles gameplan. a self-preservation technique perhaps? a perfectly charming email pings back within the hour.
"there is no other person," he writes. "we're quite shy."
"many people find it shocking that I never saw сrystal сastleslive before. they make sure to confirm how ridiculous the notion is, because of how utterly ridiculous the crystal castles live experience is. rest assured, i believed them, but i surely didn’t know just how true the sentiment was at the time.
being a small intimate private party, i was lucky enough to have a position side by side with one thirty bpm’s very own evan kaloudis right near the front of the stage. i may have never seen the band live before, but i was aware of how important a good spot was, as lead singer alice glass is known for spending a large amount of her time crowd surfing and making sure you’re aware of her presence.
it didn’t take time for me to realize that all my friends were incredibly correct about crystal castles live power. Immediately we were pistol whipped into a dance rave frenzy that was marvelous controlled chaos. alice glass lived up to her reputation as a hypnotic performer, crowd surfing numerous times. at one point she grabbed my hand, and i helped propel her into the crowd as i gloriously multi-tasked snapping photos. her presence is a mixture of wild sexiness that is also quite intimidating. while taking photos i was pretty concerned that she would crack her bottle of jim bean over my head.
thankfully things never got that wild, but this show was copious amounts of ecstasy ready fun. the whole show flew by, with all the best cuts from the bands 2 lp’s guiding the way towards the rave-tastic event that left us out of breath, and instead, filled with joy.
i can tell you right now, do whatever you can to see crystal castles live. everything that you’ve heard about their live show is beyond true. their performance was the highlight of my cmj, and easily one of the most genuinely fun concert experiences of my time.
it truly is ridiculous that i never saw them until last night."
"this is my rare сrystal сastles poster i got a few years back. it’s designed by the artist who designed the сrimewave artwork and is extremely limited and extremely rare."
from heartandsleeve on tumblr (deactivated in 2018)
the cyber-punk duo spark a hogtown grindathon. awaiting a set from local heroes crystal castles, fans were content to thrash out their anticipation in a sweaty cluster of keffiyahs and kanye shades last night at toronto's wrongbar until the puckish duo took the stage. frontwoman alice glass, looking like a black-rimmed jd salinger heroine viciously attacked by karen o in a dark closet, demurely vogued to the hard-edged beats of mix master ethan kath, who remained hunched over his atari-pimped synthesizer (a 5200 chip is encased inside) throughout the set. both sported his and her leathers, and emanated a mysterious resilience.
a live drummer added weighted professionalism to the frenetic burn of bangers "no skin," "air war," and myspace slam-dunk "alice practice," as a constant pounce of strobe lights induced electric synesthesia (or maybe it was just the flash of all those photo bloggers). but it was latest single "crimewave," off the band’s yet-to-be titled forthcoming last gang debut that defined their noir-slick sonic. like an abba-tinged pulsation remixed with l.a. scenesters health, crystal castles delivered never-ending glossy noise combustions, always in search of the next nintendo power-up.
my look is more grandmother's leftovers than heroin chic. besides, i don't talk about drugs. this skirt was my grandma's. it's kind of too big on me. she didn't leave me any of her cool clothes from the forties, just her cheap polyester stuff.
i bought this jacket at by the pound in toronto. it's one of those places where you look through a heap of stuff and sometimes you score. everything's priced based on its weight. this was about $8 (about £4). people would look better if they didn't spend money on clothes. if they took what they found and just made the most of it, that'd be good.
i'm feminine: i'm wearing a skirt, I own a bra. i think that whole big blonde look has been taken over by transsexuals now. i'm a natural blonde, but that blonde hair, big tits idea of what men want, it's now really unfeminine.
i've had my hair like this since i was 13. before that, it was much shorter. i had a chelsea, which is bangs [a fringe] and then the rest is shaved off.
my tights are always ripped. i don't think it's possible to be on tour and own a pair of tights that aren't ripped. if I threw them out, i would just be buying a new pair of tights every day.
my top is from a sports store in dalston. it's a sweater for little boys; i bought loads of them. usually i wouldn't go shopping in london. i've been to a couple of vintage stores here and they're pretty pricey. toronto is probably the best place for vintage clothes.
i must have come out of the womb wearing converse. i just wear them until they rip and become sandals. i like the clear ones when they get that awesome brown shade. i can't take anything valuable on tour; kids jump on stage and steal my stuff.
my make-up routine involves putting a bunch of black stuff on my eyes. i've worn lipstick before, but i'm not big into it. i don't really care or think about how i look. i wouldn't wear something i didn't like, but i've never had a real job so no one's ever told me how to dress.
crystal castles makes electronic music that sounds like dial-up modems making out—a drunk and exuberant boy/girl scrape at 2400 bps. songs stomp ahead with teenage determination, alice’s breathless, blushing shrieks bursting claudio’s turbografx keyboard swells. their music feels sweaty, but in a good way—like a palm after it lets go of the trackball.
“i found a keyboard in the garbage next to my building,” says claudio, the group’s defacto producer.
“i tried getting it to work, but it wouldn’t. a week before, though, i had found an atari 5200. so i ripped the soundchip out of that thing and put it in the keyboard, and i started being able to control the sounds.” he gave a dozen or so makeshift beats to alice, a local toronto girl he knew only by virtue of a friend’s crush. months later, when they finally got together in the studio, the keyboard broke, the mic was scratchy, and things were so fucked that the recording (which has since become their signature song), “alice practice,” was actually just that: alice singing for the first time over a beat, testing levels and dealing with busted equipment. frustrated—or maybe just indifferent—the two stopped talking to each other. six months passed before claudio listened to the disc again, and created a myspace account (the name crystal castles was a spur-of-the-moment tribute to she-ra’s homestead) to upload the songs. two hundred thousand plays and one year later, labels started calling, forcing claudio to reconnect with a stunned alice. “she was like, ‘we were testing the fucking mic! what were you fuckingthinkingabout!’”
their glitches have found kindred spirits in buzzy “new rave” uk bands like the klaxons, whose teeth-grinder “atlantis to interzone” the castles recently remixed. touring with the band overseas, the young canadians got drunk and got noticed, with opportunities to play everywhere from the venerable bbc to brighton mp3 blog 20 jazz funk greats. even with such newfound attention, claudio and alice remain a pretty private pair, politely refusing to reveal last names—or, maybe more interestingly, ages. “i’m not old, but I’m not young,” teases claudio. “I am a decade older than alice.” he insists they aren’t involved with each other, just partners in an exercise in serendipity. “we weren’t even a band! this is just some shit we put together.”
