Crystal Castles (band)

Crystal Castles (band)
Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles at the Popped! Music Festival, June 2008
Background information
Origin Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genres Experimental, Electronic
Years active 2004–present
Labels Lies, Merok, Trouble, Lovepump, Last Gang, Fiction
Website crystalcastles.com
Members
Ethan Kath
Alice Glass

Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and 2007, and two eponymous albums in 2008 and 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their debut album was included in NME's "Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade" list at #39.[1]

Contents

History

Ethan Kath met Alice Glass in Toronto when she was 15.[2] After hearing her sing in a local punk band, Fetus Fatale, Kath asked her to record vocals over tracks he had been working on since 2003.[3] After writing some lyrics, she went to a studio to record them, where her soundcheck was secretly recorded.[2] Six months later, Kath uploaded the finished songs to the internet, including "Alice Practice," the results of the mic check, under the band name Crystal Castles, a tribute to a song featured in the cartoon She-Ra which featured the lyric "The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles."[4] In 2005 songs such as "Magic Spells", "Untrust Us", and "Alice Practice" grew popular online, and he began receiving offers from record labels.[4] This news was especially shocking to Glass, having lost touch with Kath since the recording and up to that point unaware "Alice Practice" even existed.[4] The song became the band's first official release in 2006 on a limited vinyl which was released by London's Merok Records.[2]

First album

Main article: Crystal Castles (2008 album)

Several limited edition 7" vinyl singles followed in 2006 and 2007 on various independent labels, including two on London's Trouble Records.[citation needed] In 2008, Lies Records collected most of the vinyl singles and released them on CD for the first time (also released as a double album on 12" vinyl), along with many previously unreleased tracks and 3 songs recorded just for the collection.[citation needed] This eponymous debut album was included in NME's "Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade" list at number 39.[1]

Second album

Main article: Crystal Castles (2010 album)

The band's second album, also self-titled (a.k.a. Crystal Castles (II)), was released on May 24, 2010.[5] In April 2010, an early mix of the album leaked and without any record label promotion. The leak reached #1 on various electronic music charts worldwide.[citation needed] The album was produced by Ethan Kath at various locations, including a church in Iceland, a self-built cabin in northern Ontario, and an abandoned convenience store garage in Detroit, Michigan. Two songs were recorded in the London studio of Paul "Phones" Epworth.[citation needed]

The third single taken from the album, "Not in Love", featuring Robert Smith from The Cure, is currently the band's highest charting single to date.

Crystal Castles headlined the Shockwaves NME Awards Tour 2011 in the United Kingdom while singer Alice Glass suffered with a broken ankle.[6]

On February 23, 2011 the band was awarded the "John Peel NME award for Innovation."

Musical style

Crystal Castles musical style has been described as "ferocious, asphyxiating sheets of warped two-dimensional Gameboy glitches and bruising drum bombast that pierces your skull with their sheer shrill force, burrowing deep into the brain like a fever."[7] To listen to Crystal Castles, according to the BBC, "is to be cast adrift in a vortex of deafening pain without a safety net. You get the feeling you could do anything in the world, but that 'anything' would ultimately mean nothing. Crystal Castles marks a nuanced emotional territory that dance music never covered before."[8]

With the release of their second album, their music made a "shift toward beauty and clarity,"[9] finding "different ways to mix icy synth pop with white-hot noise, as well as present them in an ever so slightly more polished form."[10]

Touring

Crystal Castles performing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2009.

Crystal Castles have headlined numerous tours in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. They have played many festivals including Ireland's 2009 Oxegen Festival, All Points West Festival 2009 in New Jersey, Coachella Valley and Music Festival 2009 and 2011 in Indio, California, as well as the Heineken Open'er Festival 2009 in Gdynia, Poland and the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England, August 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010[11][12][13][14][15] and also headlined a Vice magazine tour across the UK in November 2007.[16]

In May 2008, Crystal Castles headlined the Glastonbury Festival in June 2008, where the on-stage antics of Glass which included her climbing the stage rigging and constantly stage-diving, led to the organisers curtailing their set.[17] Crystal Castles toured with Nine Inch Nails in three dates in August 2008.[18]

Crystal Castles also played various European summer festivals including England's Reading and Leeds Festivals. They were expected to return to the UK in September 2008 for a headlining tour but had to cancel due to recording commitments. The band also played Connect 2008 and in October they played at the Iceland Airwaves festival. Over Halloween they played a gig in LA that involved Alice Glass wrecking the drum kit.[19]

They supported Blur on the first of two comeback shows in Hyde Park, London in July 2009. They also performed at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee Friday June 12, 2009.

Crystal Castles also played the NME stage of Reading and Leeds Festival 2010, the Obelisk Arena of Latitude Festival 2010, Glastonbury 2010, RockNess 2010, Pohoda Festival in Trenčín, Slovakia, Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, Emmabodafestivalen in Emmaboda, Sweden, In New Music We Trust stage at the Radio 1 One Big Weekend in Bangor, North Wales May 2010 and Estrella Levante SOS 4.8 (May, 2010) in Murcia, Spain. Crystal Castles did a Full-Length UK tour in November 2010.

Crystal Castles in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2011.

Hard Festival 2010, which Crystal Castles are headlining, on a summer tour to; Oakland, LA State Park, Denver, Austin, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York, Baltimore and Finland.[20]

Crystal Castles performed at Australia's Big Day Out 2011 festival and Bestival 2011, alongside The Cure whose vocalist Robert Smith contributed to Crystal Castles new version of "Not in Love."

Crystal Castles also took part in the NME Awards Tour in February 2011, alongside bands Magnetic Man, Everything Everything and The Vaccines.

On 20 January 2011, Alice put strain on a previous foot injury (during a Spanish show in November 2010) in Tokyo, causing her ankle to break. The injury forced Alice to perform some shows on crutches.[21] As of March 19, 2011 Alice is still performing with one crutch and using the mic stand as her other crutch to help support herself. Her foot is encased in a plastic protective walking boot. She is more active on stage now, having jumped into the crowd on a few occasions during their March 19, 2011 set in Boston, MA. As of May 12, at the Fluxx in San Diego, CA, Alice was seen fully recovered from the previous ankle injury.

Crystal Castles were a headliner at the 2011 Ultra Music Festival, March 25–27 in Miami, FL. It is the largest electronic and dance music festival of its kind in North America.

Crystal Castles were also headlining at the Danish music festival NorthSide Festival in Aarhus June 11–12 and are scheduled to perform at Reading and Leeds Festival 2011.

Crystal Castles headlined at Moogfest in Asheville, North Carolina on October 29, 2011. Crystal Castles were invited to perfom in One music + arts festival at México DF with Chromeo and a hole bunch of artists on November 12 2011

Copyright disputes

In mid-2008, Crystal Castles were involved in two controversies related to artwork permissions and samples in their earliest unreleased songs. Pitchfork Media and the Torontoist blog published stories about Crystal Castles' use of Trevor Brown's artwork without permission. The image, depicting a black-eyed Madonna,[22][23] was used by the band on merchandise. The issue was resolved after the band bought the rights to use the image from Brown.[24]

In one of Kath's earliest, unreleased demos, he incorporated a sample without permission; the track was uploaded on the MySpace page of the label, Lies Records, without credit to the original sampled song.[25] The track, "Insectica (CC vs Lo-Bat Version)", uses clips chopped out of a song by Lo-bat called "My Little Droid Needs a Hand", released under a Creative Commons license. Another track called "Love and Caring", samples the kick and snare from Covox's "Sunday."[25][26][27][28]

Members

Additional live members
  • Christopher Chartrand – drums (2006, 2008–present)
Former live members
  • Cameron Findlay – drums (2007–2008, currently playing in Parallels)
  • Mike Bell – drums (2008–2009, currently playing in Lymbyc Systym)
  • Thomas Cullen – drums (February 2008), currently DJs as Yes!Tom

Discography

Albums

Year Album UK US US Dance Record Label
2008 Crystal Castles 47 – 6 Last Gang
2010 Crystal Castles 48 188 6 Fiction

Singles

Year Title Peak chart positions Album
CAN
Alt
[29]		 AUS BEL (FLA)
[30]		 BEL (WAL)
[31]		 DEN
[32]		 UK UK
Ind
2006 "Alice Practice" — — — — — — — Crystal Castles
"Crimewave" — — — — — — 17
2008 "Air War" — — — — — — —
"Courtship Dating" — — — — — — —
2010 "Celestica" — — — — — — — Crystal Castles II
"Baptism" — — — — — 102 —
"Not in Love" (featuring Robert Smith) 18 90 53 43 31 54 —
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released to that country

Remixes

Videography

  • "Crimewave" (2008)
  • "Magic Spells" (2008) (directed by Video Marsh)
  • "Courtship Dating" (2008) (directed by Marc Pannozzo)
  • "Celestica" (2010) (directed by Rob Hawkins)
  • "Baptism" (2010) (directed by Rob Hawkins)
  • "Suffocation" (2011) (directed by Ethan Kath)

References

  1. ^ a b Magazine, NME. "The Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade". NME. http://www.nme.com/list/the-top-100-greatest-albums-of-the-decade/158049/page/7. Retrieved 2009-11-15. 
  2. ^ a b c "Indie Intro: 5 Things You Need To Know About Crystal Castles". 2010-06-10. http://www.complex.com/blog_galleries/indie-intro-5-things-you-need-to-know-about-crystal-castles. Retrieved 2010-12-26. 
  3. ^ Paphides, Pete (2008-08-29). "Some Ting in the way the Crystal Castles move". The Times. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4627079.ece. Retrieved 2010-12-26. 
  4. ^ a b c Creeley, Will. "Walking On Glass". The Fader magazine. http://www.thefader.com/blog/articles/2006/12/12/walking-on-glass. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  5. ^ "Crystal Castles (II): Crystal Castles: Amazon.co.uk: Music". Amazon.co.uk. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003H8F566. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  6. ^ "Crystal Castles kick off Shockwaves NME Awards Tour on crutches | News". Nme.Com. http://www.nme.com/news/crystal-castles/54823. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  7. ^ Shankly, Jack. "Underage Festival: wait a minute, these people are all children!". Drowned in Sound. http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2305247. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  8. ^ Hammer, Sophie. "BBC Music". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/48p2/. Retrieved 2008-04-18. 
  9. ^ "Pitchfork – reviews – Crystal Castles". http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14190-crystal-castles/. Retrieved 2011-05-22. 
  10. ^ "allmusic.com – Crystal Castles (II) review". http://allmusic.com/album/crystal-castles-ii-r1813702/review. Retrieved 2011-05-22. 
  11. ^ Kharas, Kev. "Reading & Leeds: Lock Up / Dance line-ups revealed". Drowned in Sound. http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2082567. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  12. ^ Wright, Ian. "Dancing About Architecture 08.14.07". 411mania. http://www.411mania.com/music/columns/58341/Dancing-About-Architecture-08.14.07.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  13. ^ "Report: Amy Winehouse Hospitalized; Initial CMJ Bill Unveiled". Spin. http://www.spin.com/features/news/2007/08/070810_winehouse_acl/. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  14. ^ Solarski, Matthew. "CMJ 07: Spoon, Xiu Xiu, Deerhunter, Deacon, Justice". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/44755-cmj-07-spoon-xiu-xiu-deerhunter-deacon-justice. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  15. ^ Zeiss, John. "Fest mania: 2007 CMJ lineup coming together". Prefix magazine. http://www.prefixmag.com/blog/cmj-2007-2/6673. Retrieved 2007-09-04. 
  16. ^ Kharas, Kev. "These New Puritans, Teenagers, Crystal Castles for Unitaur". Drowned in Sound. http://wwww.drownedinsound.com/articles/2442871. Retrieved 2007-10-15. 
  17. ^ "Crystal Castles Anger Glastonbury Staff". ContactMusic.com. http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/crystal%20castles%20anger%20glastonbury%20staff_1072888. Retrieved 2008-07-02. 
  18. ^ Solarski, Matthew. "Crystal Castles Respond to Chip Music Controversy". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/51349-crystal-castles-respond-to-chip-music-controversy. Retrieved 2008-06-18. 
  19. ^ "Crystal Castles Magazine – News, Reviews and Videos". Idiomag.com. http://www.idiomag.com/artist/crystal_castles/?search_artist=jane#/47774/1/. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  20. ^ "HARD Summer Tour 2010". Hardfest.com. http://www.hardfest.com/summer2010.php. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  21. ^ "Crystal Castles' Alice Glass Hospitalized With Broken Ankle". CHARTattack. 2011-01-21. http://www.chartattack.com/news/2011/jan/21/crystal-castles-alice-glass-hospitalized-with-broken-ankle. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  22. ^ "Crystal Castles Caught Up in Artwork Controversy". http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/50168-crystal-castles-caught-up-in-artwork-controversy. Retrieved 2008-04-23. 
  23. ^ "Untrust Us". http://torontoist.com/2008/04/crystal_castles_trevor_brown.php. Retrieved 2008-04-23. 
  24. ^ "baby art blog : the crystal castles fiasco: CASE OVER!". Pileup.com. http://www.pileup.com/babyart/blog/?p=201. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  25. ^ a b Thiessen, Brock (2008-05-06). "Crystal Castles Accused of Plagiarism". Exclaim.ca. http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=121&csid2=844&fid1=31229. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  26. ^ "Crystal Castles' Creative Commons Controversy". Blogto.com. 2008-05-06. http://blogto.com/music/2008/05/crystal_castles_creative_commons_controversy/. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  27. ^ Kern, Peter. "Chiptune Music Theft Continues; Crystal Castles Abuses Creative Commons License". createdigitalmusic. http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/05/chiptune-music-theft-continues-crystal-castles-abuses-creative-commons-license/. Retrieved 2008-05-05. 
  28. ^ "Crystal Castles Accused Of Stealing Songs". Chartattack.com. 2008-05-06. http://www.chartattack.com/news/53762/crystal-castles-accused-of-stealing-songs. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  29. ^ "Canadian Active Rock & Alt Rock Chart Archive: Alternative Rock – April 26, 2011". America's Music Charts. http://canadianrockalt.blogspot.com/2011/04/alternative-rock-april-26-2011.html. Retrieved May 1, 2011. 
  30. ^ "Crystal Castles feat. Robert Smith – Not In Love". ultratop.be. http://www.ultratop.be/nl/showitem.asp?interpret=Crystal+Castles+feat.+Robert+Smith&titel=Not+In+Love&cat=s. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  31. ^ "Crystal Castles feat. Robert Smith – Not In Love". ultratop.be. http://www.ultratop.be/fr/showitem.asp?interpret=Crystal+Castles+feat.+Robert+Smith&titel=Not+In+Love&cat=s. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 
  32. ^ Steffen Hung. "Crystal Castles feat. Robert Smith – Not In Love". danishcharts.com. http://danishcharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Crystal+Castles+feat.+Robert+Smith&titel=Not+In+Love&cat=s. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 

External links

v · d · eCrystal Castles
Alice Glass · Ethan Kath
Studio albums
EPs
Alice Practice · Crystal Castles//HEALTH · Doe Deer
Singles
"Crimewave" · "Air War" · "Courtship Dating" · "Vanished" · "Celestica" · "Baptism" · "Not in Love"

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