(one of their first UK interviews, Disorder Magazine, summer 2006)
Crystal Castles like a drink. They also like dancing and playing loud music. Skull-fuckingly loud, if they get their way with the sound guys at their gigs. If you’re a frequenter of those zeitgeist-surfing club nights around the country, you may have caught them live this summer when they came over for the obligatory trawl around the Do Club/Liars Club/Dalston crackhouse-type venues, following a couple of years of dragging themselves up from Toronto’s grimy underground. Um, quite literally it seems…
“I have a sewer job,” explains Ethin, who makes their speaker-shredding sounds on his computer. “There’s this old sewer that always gets blocked up. My job is to go down there every now and then to make sure that things are flowing freely.”
“We’ll be like… what the fuck stinks?” squirms vocalist/keyboardist Alice. “Oh it’s you, sewer boy!”
“I like having the keys to the sewer,” Ethin whispers. “I could quit but they’d probably change the lock.”
“This is all a complete accident,” begins Ethin, as he prepares to assume the role of storyteller so we can do the whole band history thing. “In 2004 I made a few songs and gave them to her to put words on but she didn’t get round to it for six months. So, in early 2005 we practised once, hit record and put them up on our MySpace page. Somehow this website called 20jazzfunkgreats (Brighton-based blogger) discovered the page and wrote that the forthcoming Crystal Castles album will be the best record of the year. And it’s like… who said there was a forthcoming album? These were just downloads for my friends.”
“From that, people around Toronto started asking us to play shows and Ricky from Alt-Delete discovered us. He told Klaxons about us, they told Milo (from Merok Records) about us and he wanted to put it out as a 7-inch. I told him that it was just a practise. I mean, we even called the song ‘Alice Practise’, and now it’s, like… a single? Like… we’re really not trying here.”
Alice is more succinct in her description of events. “It’s a walking abortion.”
There’s one woman somewhere who’s solely responsible for the unholy racket created by this pair.
“We met through a friend of Alice’s who had a crush on me,” explains Ethin in the kitchen of their record label’s HQ in London as the odd Klaxon or two potter around.
“She tagged along and I saw their band play. I noticed that her lyrics were cool so that’s how I became interested in having her sing over my songs. So, were it not for her friend liking me I would never had known she existed.
Still, here they are: rake-thin and housed inside two pairs of the skinniest black jeans available to humanity, and just a dozen or so shows into their careers.
“Back home we were just playing to our friends,” says Ethin, who tends to be hidden behind stubble, an Adidas hoodie, and, for today at least, a Les Georges Leningrad t-shirt. “At least here we’re playing to strangers. On this trip we’re gonna double the amount of shows we’ve done in our lifetime.”
As brief as their existence as a live entity has been so far, there’s still been ample opportunity for on-the-road mischief, like the time they unplugged the PA during some god-awful electro-rap act “because they just wouldn’t fucking stop,” and they’ve found time to acquaint themselves with the thuggish scum that infest our public transport system.
Alice: “There was an old man sitting behind us when we were on the bus to Nottingham who perfectly slashed one of the cans of beer I had in my bag.”
“He was so disturbed by what we were talking about that he slashed one of the cans with a knife,” confirms Ethin.
Alice: “The digital camera didn’t get fucked though. Even though it was floating around in all this shit.”
Google Crystal Castles and you’re more likely to stumble across geeky sites devoted to a Pac-Man inspired arcade game from the 80’s than a Canadian duo with beats that pummel your senses so hard it makes you want to vomit blood.
“That’s a coincidence,” says Ethin. “But yeah, that might be a problem actually. Yeah, the game ruined everything.”
That said, the band were actually named after She-Ra’s (He-Man’s sibling) home. There’s a picture of it proudly displayed on Ethin’s computer in all its pink glory. An unhealthy childhood obsession with the Masters Of The Universe, then?
“No,” replies Ethin, completely straight-faced. “But She-Ra’s home is a magical place.”
Neither of them are particularly forthcoming when it comes to influences (their MySpace page helpfully lists “murder, blank looks on girls, knives”) and Ethin will only admit to having enjoyed “the first few records by Metallica.” And although many of their tracks sample 8-bit sounds they’re hardly joystick-grabbing junkies either.
Ethin: “I hate video games, but I’m aware that the sounds from the early games are really nice. So, as soon as I got the idea for the band I went to a thrift store and tracked down an Atari computer. I bought it, took the sound chip out of it and put it inside a keyboard, so that I’d be able to control the sound.”
The result is some the gnarliest, most insanely intense sounds outside of Lebanon, with Alice hollering over the malevolent-sounding bleeps, pings and crunches of bass. A lesser publication would doubtless lump them in clumsily with any number of terminally hip bands that ever been within striking distance of a keyboard (Nu-rave? Or whatever this week’s collective term is for danceable indie acts). For now though, Ethin seems content with “Atari dance music. Well, for this year. Next year we’ll probably like… completely change our sound. This year it’s old computer games. Next year it could be something else.”
“It’s all just blocks of concrete,” says Alice, thinking about their hometown in Canada. “Buildings from the fifties that look like they were just put up overnight. It’s pretty ugly. And every sixth person you meet will be an accountant.”
But surely there are loads of great new bands tumbling out of Canada at the moment?
Alice: “When you finally find something, it’s amazing and everyone shows up, but most of the bands that are actually really good are like… fucked up.”
“Yeah, there’s some good metal hardcore bands from Toronto,” agrees Ethin, “but the electronic bands are a joke. We just defeat them without even trying.”
Cocky? Hmm… maybe. But listen, these guys are brandishing kitchen knives and may well be in league with the Princess of Power herself. Frankly, we’re in no position to argue. Disorder’s outta here.
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