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Crystal Castles Interview |
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Words: Kieron Gillen
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Illustration: Lindsay Wright
They sound exactly like my bedroom did circa 1986
when I fired Spectrum sound effects through the
biggest speaker I could find while simultaneously
SCREAMING AT THE UNFAIRNESS OF BASTARD
R-TYPE LEVEL FUCKING 4. They’d have been my
pre-pubescent favourite band in the entire world
in the rare moments I wasn’t drumming my fingers
waiting until I could finally fruitfully ejaculate while
thinking of She-Ra.
Coincidence: Crystal Castles are named after
She-Ra’s magical castle. They’re also accidentally
share the name of an early videogame, which is
appropriate, but just an accident.
“We don’t know anything about the game,”
they admonish us. “We do know that He-man
and She-Ra accidentally make out in one episode.
The writer for that episode didn’t know they
were brother and sister. We learned about the
videogame long after naming the band.”
This is doubly appropriate. They profess that
Crystal Castles is an accident, full stop. “We’re not
meant to be a band,” they say. “We were merely
messing about with sounds and we put the results
on the internet for some friends to download.
Somehow a few labels heard the songs and wanted
to release them. Crystal Castles is an accident. ‘Alice
Practice’ is Alice practicing. She didn’t know I was
recording.” A terrible accident, but compellingly
beautiful, like a nun-packed bus crashing headlong
into a truck full of scalpels made of gold.
They’ve just released their third EP, ‘Alice
Practice’, on Merok Records. It has four tracks.
‘Alice Practice’ starts crystalline and distorted,
like the death of an Asteroid, before the voice
stomps in. (Me: “If ‘Alice Practice’ was a type of
dog it would be?” Crystal Castles: “Dying.”)
‘Dolls’ is incessant and relentless like the right-to-
left scroll of Kung-Fu master. (Me: “If ‘Dolls’
was a colour it would be a…?” Crystal Castles:
“Sleepy.”) ‘Air War’ moves with the microtwitch
of a space invader’s arm, chased by
schizophrenic’s bad thoughts, and the voice
stays away so long that you suspect this will
be the instrumental before she starts bubbling
in what sounds like French, but possibly some
kind of backwards Martian French AND IT IS
VERY EXCITING. (Me: If ‘Air War’ was an
intercontinental nuclear delivery system it
would be…? Crystal Castles: “Reading
a book.”) ‘Love & Caring’ hits as hard as
a Robotron level and features the only
distinguishable lyrics on the EP. “What the hell
is this?” the girl drawls, confused. “Ah. It’s the
bass.” And the bass rumbles on like the sort of
soundwave you wouldn’t let near small children.
(Me: If ‘Love & Caring’ was a question it would
be…? Crystal Castles: “Getting a haircut.”)
This is their music: Bleep! Bleep! Bleep-bleepbleep!
This is their lyrics: “GAHHH! GAHHK!
GGGAHH! GAHHH!” And you can fucking
DANCE TO IT.
You want more? I want you out of
my species.
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