The tower and the glory
Beloved of both nu ravers and Timbaland who neglected to ask permission before sampling one of their songs, Crystal Castles might just be the biggest band to come out of leftfield this year.
Ed Power, 17 May 2008
Something strange is going down at Andrew’s Lane tonight. In the early summer gloom, neon-festooned kids have congregated outside the city-centre Dublin venue. Wearing day-glo hoodies and Converse slip-ons, many could have come straight from a nu rave fashion shoot. They’re here for a sold-out show by Crystal Castles, the buzz propelled Toronto twosome whose glitchy, woozy synth-weirdness is presently lighting up the blogosphere.
Spread-eagled in a pokey upstairs room above the recently refurbished former theatre, Ethan Kath, the bearded half of the duo, appears vaguely stunned by the turn out.
“When we heard that it was sold-out we were totally psyched,” says Kath. “You know, we’ve been doing this for two years now and it still hasn’t sunk in. We’re still living in a dreamland.”
A rangy dude with scraggy curls and Jesus-goes-surfing facial fuzz, Kath is leery of Crystal Castle’s nu rave tag. You can see where he’s coming from – on their self-titled debut, he and partner Alice Glass conjure eerie, throbbing synthscapes, languid quasi-instrumentals awash with 8-bit Nintendo beats and waves of dissonance. If this is nu rave, then Mozart was a guy from the Alps who could bash out a tune on a harpsichord.
For the past ten minutes or so, we’ve been talking about Glass’ recent car accident, which left her in a cast and forced the band to cancel nearly a fortnight of touring. In hindsight, it could, says Kath, have been a great deal worse.
“We were playing Chicago and after the show she was driving with a girlfriend – a pal of hers, you know. The show ends, we pack our gear. It’s three in the morning and we’re thinking – where is she? It’s five and we’re thinking, where is she? Seven in the morning, we finally get the call – she’s in hospital. It really sucked. It was really depressing.”
Like a deleted scene from a Robert Altman movie, the story of Kath and Glass’ first meeting is fraught with coincidences and drama. “We were both in trouble with the law,” he recounts. “I was in a heavy metal band and I got in trouble. I couldn’t cross the border to play in the States. I was doing everything in my power to clean my record. I hired this criminal lawyer – he said I could convince the judge to erase it if I did 50 hours of community service.”
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