Crystal Castles (band)

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Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Background information
Origin Toronto [1][2][3][4][5]
Genre(s) Electronic music
Chiptune
Electro house
Years active 2004–present
Label(s) Merok Records, Trouble Records, Last Gang Records, Lovepump United Records
Members
Alice Glass
Ethan Kath

Crystal Castles is a Toronto-based band, consisting of multi-instrumentalist Ethan Kath (of Jakarta and formerly Kill Cheerleader) and vocalist Alice Glass (of Fetus Fatale).[6] Crystal Castles are known not only for their own efforts as a band, but also for commissioned remixes for number of groups, including "Hunting for Witches" by Bloc Party, and "Atlantis to Interzone" by friends and label mates, Klaxons.[7]

Contents

[edit] History

Crystal Castles, named after the Crystal Castle from the She-Ra franchise[8], 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.[9]

Since the release of "Alice Practice", the duo announced plans to release their first full-length album on Last Gang Records, which was released in North America on 18 March 2008 and released in the UK on 28 April 2008.[10]

Crystal Castles have toured Europe and the USA numerous times since 2006, including a US tour with Australian, electronic group, The Presets in February 2007.[11][12][13] The band also played at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England, August 2007[14] and were set to play the CMJ Festival October 2007.[15][16][17][18] They supported Metric on certain dates throughout their North American tour in September and October 2007[19][20][21] and also headlined Vice Magazine's UK tour in November 2007 called Unitaur, which also featured These New Puritans and The Teenagers.[22]

Crystal Castles were also featured in the Channel 4 British Drama Skins (Series 2 Episode 3) performing as themselves playing "Alice Practice".

In mid-2008, Crystal Castles became focal in several plagiarism disputes. Pitchfork Media and The Torontoist published stories about Crystal Castles' use of Trevor Brown's artwork without permission. The image, depicting a black-eyed Madonna,[23][7] was used by the band on merchandise, after being found on an "old flyer, without credit", with the hope "that the artist might reveal themselves and make contact".[7] The band were also alleged to have plagiarised several of their unreleased songs from the chiptune community, including "Insecticon", which shares similarity with a song by Lo-bat called, "My Little Droid Needs a Hand", and "Love and Caring", which samples Covox's "Sunday".[24][25][26][27]

[edit] Musical style

Crystal Castles' music is easily recognized by their heavy use of samples and distorted female vocals. Crystal Castles claims to use a modified keyboard that uses an Atari 5200 sound chip [6] as an oscillator. 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".[28] 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".[29]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio albums

[edit] Singles & EPs

  • Limited Edition of 500 copies. Sold out in 3 days.
  • "Crimewave" 7" (Crystal Castles vs. HEALTH) (August 13, 2007) - Trouble Records
  • "Crystal Castles/HEALTH 7" (September 18, 2007) - Lovepump United Records (LPU013)
  • "Air War" 7" (December 17, 2007) - Trouble Records (TROUBLE001)
  • "Courtship Dating" (March 31, 2008)

[edit] Remixes

Crystal Castles have remixed a number of songs including:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Crystal Castles plot North American tour. NME. Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  2. ^ Peterson, Dave. Health at the Biko Co-Op. Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  3. ^ Bimm, Jordan. The top ten 2007 singles you haven't heard. The Varsity. Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  4. ^ Music Listings. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  5. ^ Sperounes, Sandra. Expect an Epic performance at Rexall. The Edmonton Journal. Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  6. ^ a b Creeley, Will. Walking On Glass. The Fader magazine. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  7. ^ a b c Untrust Us. Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
  8. ^ Suarez, Jessica. Rising: Crystal Castles: "Air War"/ "Lovers Who Uncover (Little Ones Remix)". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  9. ^ Gillen, Kieron. Crystal Castles Interview. Plan B magazine. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  10. ^ Thompson, Paul. Crystal Castles Tour Real World With Metric, Tour Fantasy Worlds With Joysticks. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2007-09-26.
  11. ^ Garisto, Julie. Sound check: Upcoming concerts. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  12. ^ Spinella, Mike. The Presets to Tour Stateside. Spinner. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  13. ^ Byrne, Niall. 8-Bit Excursions. Nialler9. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  14. ^ Kharas, Kev. Reading & Leeds: Lock Up / Dance line-ups revealed. Drowned in Sound. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  15. ^ Wright, Ian. Dancing About Architecture 08.14.07. 411mania. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  16. ^ Report: Amy Winehouse Hospitalized; Initial CMJ Bill Unveiled. Spin. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  17. ^ Solarski, Matthew. CMJ 07: Spoon, Xiu Xiu, Deerhunter, Deacon, Justice. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  18. ^ Zeiss, John. Fest mania: 2007 CMJ lineup coming together. Prefix magazine. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  19. ^ Metric announce North American dates. NME. Retrieved on 2007-10-15.
  20. ^ Lewis, Jessica. Get A Look At Crystal Castles On Tour. Chart attack. Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  21. ^ Photos: Metric / Crystal Castles [New York, NY; 09/21/07. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  22. ^ Kharas, Kev. These New Puritans, Teenagers, Crystal Castles for Unitaur. Drowned in Sound. Retrieved on 2007-10-15.
  23. ^ Crystal Castles Caught Up in Artwork Controversy. Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
  24. ^ Crystal Castles' Creative Commons Controversy
  25. ^ Crystal Castles Accused of Plagiarism
  26. ^ Kern, Peter. Chiptune Music Theft Continues; Crystal Castles Abuses Creative Commons License. createdigitalmusic. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.
  27. ^ Crystal Castles Accused Of Stealing Songs
  28. ^ Shankly, Jack. Underage Festival: wait a minute, these people are all children!. Drowned in Sound. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.
  29. ^ Hogan, Marc. On Repeat: GoodBooks: "Leni (Crystal Castles Remix)". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2007-09-04.

[edit] External links

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