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Crystal Castles

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Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles is a Toronto-formed band, consisting of multi-instrumentalist Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass.[9] Crystal Castles are known not only for their own efforts as a band, but also for their chaotic live shows and Kath's remixes for a number of groups, including "Hunting for Witches" by Bloc Party, and "Atlantis to Interzone" by friends, Klaxons.[10]

History

Crystal Castles, named after the Crystal Castle from She-Ra: Princess of Power[9], formed in December 2003 as a project started by Ethan Kath. In April 2005, Alice Glass recorded vocals for five original instrumentals by Kath. The band's first single was recorded "accidentally": a microphone test by Glass was released through MySpace as "Alice Practice" in September 2005. Glass was not aware that it had been used until record companies heard the song and contacted the duo to offer them record deals.[11]

Since the release of "Alice Practice", the duo released their first full-length album on Last Gang Records, in North America on March 18, 2008 and in the UK on April 28, 2008.[12]

Touring

Crystal Castles have toured Europe and the USA numerous times since 2006, including a US tour with the Australian electronic group The Presets in February 2007.[13][14][15] The band also played at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England, August 2007[16] and were set to play the CMJ Festival October 2007.[17][18][19][20] They supported Metric on certain dates throughout their North American tour in September and October 2007[21][22][23] and also headlined Vice Magazine's UK tour in November 2007 called Unitaur, which also featured These New Puritans, and The Teenagers.[24]

In May 2008, Crystal Castles headlined the UK's NME New Noise tour along with Friendly Fires, Team Waterpolo and White Lies.

Crystal Castles performed at 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.[25] Crystal Castles toured with Nine Inch Nails in dates across July and August 2008.[26]

Crystal Castles also played various European summer festivals including England's Reading & 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 another rather dramatic gig in LA that involved Alice Glass wrecking the drum kit[27]

Their current live drummer is Michael Bell of Lymbyc Systym. Toronto based drummer, Chris Chartrand is another live drummer they use.

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,[28][10] was used by the band on merchandise. The issue was resolved after the band bought the rights to use the image from Brown.[29]

Also, in one of Kath's earliest, unreleased demos, he incorporated a sample without permission; the track was released on the MySpace page of the label, Lies Records, without credit to the original sampled song.[30] The track, "Insecticon", uses chopped up samples from a song by Lo-bat called "My Little Droid Needs a Hand" (released under a Creative Commons license). Another includes the song "Love and Caring", which samples the kick and snare from Covox's "Sunday".[31][30][32][33] Pitchfork published an article in defense of the band, saying that the band had never released the songs nor performed them and thus were not responsible for breaking the Creative Commons licensing on the songs.[26]

Musical style

Crystal Castles' music is easily recognized by their heavy use of samples and distorted female vocals. Crystal Castles does not in fact use a modified keyboard with an Atari 5200 sound chip[9] as an oscillator, as it is frequently claimed.[34] Their musical style has been described as having "ferocious, asphyxiating sheets of warped two-dimensional Gameboy glitches and bruising drum bombast pierce [the] skull with sheer shrill force, burrowing deep into the brain like a fever".[35] Indie music review website, Pitchfork, gave a positive review of Crystal Castles' remix of "Leni" by GoodBooks, and described the style as "pitch-shifted vocal snippets [that] ricochet like pinballs around Crystal Castles' patented 8-bit synths".[36]

Band members

  • Ethan Kath – Instruments and production
  • Alice Glass – Vocals

Videography

  • Magic Spells (2008) (Directed by Videomarsh, who created the special effects of a cinder block smashing someone's skull)
  • Courtship Dating (2008) (Directed by Marc Pannozzo)
  • Crimewave (2008) (Fan video released as the official video including live footage and clips from the Bruce LaBruce film "Otto")

Discography

Studio albums

Singles and EPs

  • Limited edition of 500 copies. Sold out in three days.
  • "Crimewave" 7" (Crystal Castles vs. HEALTH) (August 13, 2007) – Trouble Records
  • "Air War" 7" (December 17, 2007) – Trouble Records (TROUBLE001)
  • "Courtship Dating" 7" (March 31, 2008)
  • "Crimewave" 12" (Crystal Castles vs. HEALTH) (September 2008)

References

  1. ^ "Crystal Castles plot North American tour". NME. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  2. ^ Peterson, Dave. "Health at the Biko Co-Op". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  3. ^ Bimm, Jordan. "The top ten 2007 singles you haven't heard". The Varsity. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  4. ^ "Music Listings". The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  5. ^ Sperounes, Sandra. "Expect an Epic performance at Rexall". The Edmonton Journal. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  6. ^ Minimalist electronics rule Toronto duo's debut | The Michigan Daily
  7. ^ http://audiotube.com/artist/1407-crystal-castles.html
  8. ^ http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/reviews/music/12781/Crystal-Castles--Crystal-Castles.htm
  9. ^ a b c Creeley, Will. "Walking On Glass". The Fader magazine. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  10. ^ a b "Untrust Us". Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  11. ^ Gillen, Kieron. "Crystal Castles Interview". Plan B magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-01-03. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  12. ^ Thompson, Paul. "Crystal Castles Tour Real World With Metric, Tour Fantasy Worlds With Joysticks". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2007-09-26.
  13. ^ Garisto, Julie. "Sound check: Upcoming concerts". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  14. ^ Spinella, Mike. "The Presets to Tour Stateside". Spinner. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  15. ^ Byrne, Niall. "8-Bit Excursions". Nialler9. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  16. ^ Kharas, Kev. "Reading & Leeds: Lock Up / Dance line-ups revealed". Drowned in Sound. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  17. ^ Wright, Ian. "Dancing About Architecture 08.14.07". 411mania. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  18. ^ "Report: Amy Winehouse Hospitalized; Initial CMJ Bill Unveiled". Spin. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  19. ^ Solarski, Matthew. "CMJ 07: Spoon, Xiu Xiu, Deerhunter, Deacon, Justice". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  20. ^ Zeiss, John. "Fest mania: 2007 CMJ lineup coming together". Prefix magazine. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  21. ^ "Metric announce North American dates". NME. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  22. ^ Lewis, Jessica. "Get A Look At Crystal Castles On Tour". Chart attack. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  23. ^ "Photos: Metric / Crystal Castles [New York, NY; 09/21/07". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  24. ^ Kharas, Kev. "These New Puritans, Teenagers, Crystal Castles for Unitaur". Drowned in Sound. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  25. ^ "Crystal Castles Anger Glastonbury Staff". ContactMusic.com. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
  26. ^ a b Solarski, Matthew. "Crystal Castles Respond to Chip Music Controversy". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
  27. ^ Crystal Castles Magazine - News, Reviews and Videos
  28. ^ "Crystal Castles Caught Up in Artwork Controversy". Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  29. ^ baby art blog : the crystal castles fiasco: CASE OVER!
  30. ^ a b Crystal Castles Accused of Plagiarism
  31. ^ Crystal Castles' Creative Commons Controversy
  32. ^ Kern, Peter. "Chiptune Music Theft Continues; Crystal Castles Abuses Creative Commons License". createdigitalmusic. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
  33. ^ Crystal Castles Accused Of Stealing Songs
  34. ^ "Crystal Castles Interview, mp3s, secret show". Sparks vs Space. Retrieved 2008-10-25.
  35. ^ Shankly, Jack. "Underage Festival: wait a minute, these people are all children!". Drowned in Sound. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  36. ^ Hogan, Marc. "On Repeat: GoodBooks: "Leni (Crystal Castles Remix)"". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
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