The Mystery of Crystal Castles

In an age where some pasty looking kid whining out
an overwrought version of "Mad World" on the X Factor is considered the epitome of alternative, and where W H Smith is only one step away from stocking its front windows with titles such as Kerry Katona: My Golden Vagina, it can seem like a figure of genuine weirdness and mystery is nothing but a daydream. A far off fantasy, wandering a lonely desert, shiftless and unapproachable, Clint Eastwood style.

However, in the midst of the banality flooding our streets, there's one band who are truly the antithesis of that. Crystal Castles. Masters of glitchy, apocalyptic, self destructive 8-bit electro.



Now there are a million and one other noise/electro artists around nowadays. Why did Crystal Castles make such an impact a couple of years ago, an impact which has only grown over the past 12 months since their second album, Crystal Castles (II)?

Crystal Castles are one of the few prominent bands around at the moment who are genuinely mysterious, weird and just a wee bit scary. And it's the thing that makes them most alluring. We know so little about them. Their backgrounds are shrouded in mystery. We only know enough to know that we don't really know enough. The details garnered from interviews create a genuinely dark, almost traumatic back story.

Ethan Kath (28 and the musical brains behind the operation) has played drums in an anarchist-punk band, bass in a garage-metal band, and guitar in a GG Allin cover-band. He was once in a folk duo which ended tragically with the premature death of his partner. Outside of that, we know virtually nothing about this guy's life. He seems to go out of his way to remain unseen in the shadows onstage, and has rarely been photographed without some of his face obscured. He was apparently born on Christmas day though... We don't even know his real name. "Kath" comes from catheter, after Alice Glass decided to name him after "the most painful thing ever".

The aforementioned Alice (22, the self destructive front-woman/vocalist/lyricist) has revealed a few more details about her past - just a few mind - and they are in no way any more pleasant. She ran away from home at 14, changed her name to Vicki Vale after a Batman character, and lived in a squat full of punks and junkies who would "do really shitty things like heat up metal coat hangers and brand their skulls … ". She got involved in playing with noise punk bands and Ethan Kath saw her live (apparently she was higher than anybody he'd ever seen in his life) and snapped her up as the missing ingredient to his music.

That's a pretty big contrast to checking out Johnny Borrell's Wikipedia page which gives you a list of every single academic institution that had to regrettably suffer his sordid presence.

Now that darkness in Crystal Castles' past, that elusive backstory, brimming with shifting shadows, hearsay and Transatlantic whispers, is part of what has made this band so attractive and so inspiring to many. The darkness is real and authentic. It's clearly the bleeding product of the wounds of experience. They're no sodding White Lies. It's like what made Joy Division so enthralling (and still does). Ian Curtis' bleak and suicidal lyrics were raw and authentic, stemming from a man suffering epilepsy, a broken marriage and tidal waves of self loathing. Not to tastelessly mythologise it, but his tragic suicide in 1980 affirmed his lyrics, and makes the whole Joy Division legacy morbidly captivating. In the same way, the dark yet enigmatic past of Crystal Castles makes them possibly the most fascinating band of our time. That's not to somehow idolise or deify their tragic pasts though. I'm not claiming that a 14 year old girl living in a drug filled squat and a man losing his best friend and musical partner is in any way cool or rock and roll. And I'm not sure they'd want me to. But it is real. It is dark. It's part of who they are as a band. And it's a miracle we've garnered these details too. Ethan is renowned for being aloof and moody in interview, yet with a bizzarre tendency to swing suddenly into a mood of cheery politness (the Ian Curtis comparisons go on...) and Alice Glass, in all the interview I've come across, seems somewhat away with the fairies. Neither of them have mobile phones either.

These few tentative, tragic details are made curiously irrelevant however. Another thing that fuels the fire of Crystal Castles hype is the dehumanisation of Alice Glass. Now, that's a phrase that could reek of pseudo-critical pretension (and a phrase that has come up in conversation with at least one of my regular readers...) but let me explain.

Below are some pictures of Alice Glass:







Now in all of these pictures, and in nearly all other pictures you'll see of her, she looks dehumanised and unfeminine, I'm sure you'll agree. The choppy hair that she cuts herself, the mismatched clothing, the strung out facial expression, the pasty skin, posture like Bambi on heroin. She seems like a battered, patched and soiled rag doll. She looks like she doesn't care about anything, least of all herself. It's something you can trace straight back to Nirvana. Self loathing, or at least self disregard, means that Alice - the spastic, energetic face of the duo - is dehumanised, defeminised, for the sake of the band. It's backed up by the constant distortion of her vocals as well as the vast body of her lyrics.

And yet at the same time (NOTE: This could just be me coming out with something unnerving and strange, in which case, I apologise... sort of...) there's something quite sexual about the way Alice Glass presents herself. The choppy, unkempt, doll like facade is terrifyingly carnal, like some deranged school girl which, all jokes aside, is a pretty popular male sexual fantasy for one reason or another (if any of you start quoting Freud at me I will send you home crying to your mother... though that may not be the best option considering...) It's a strange duality how by dehumanising herself, tossing herself about violently in her live shows, surrendering her body to whatever violence might come upon it, she becomes a whirling, frenetic embodiment of unleashed energy, pent up in frustration for too long. That's another reason Crystal Castles have such an impact, especially with teenagers. They personify the way all teenagers wish they could release their energies, in the same way that Elvis, Sex Pistols, Nirvana and others have done before. And I think that's why her dehumanisation is so important. She becomes universal - despite still being a fascinating individual - and gets hoisted up by a bunch of sweaty, aggravated teenagers, like a bunch of indie Ewoks lifting up a drug addled, bizzarely sexy C3PO. I find her very attractive if I'm honest. Even if she mite bite me or whatever. I saw her performing last night at Brixton Academy and, judging from the conversation and heckling from the crowed, I certainly wasn't the only one there with a burgeoning crush. At one point when she was thrashing around on the floor, I distinctly saw the boy next to me look at her and just moan "Ohhhh!" In fact, I waited until afters seeing them to post this, as I wanted to see how the live experience affected my perception of the band. I can tell you that it's only confirmed and heightened everything I think about them, and also revealed that they are undoubtedly the best live act I've ever seen.

There's the obvious fact as well that the band create awesome music, but that's not what I've wanted to delve into. Crystal Castles are, like I said, probably the most fascinating band around at the moment (though Odd Future Wolfgang Kill Them All are giving them a run for their money). They are genuinely mysterious; a giant, pitch black thorn pulsating in culture's ribcage. They possess an authentic darkness that makes them unsettling yet compelling all at once, and the fact that the darkness is genuine means they don't come off like a pair of pretenders, annoying little screamo kids or as hilariously contrived as most metal bands nowadays. To question their authenticity is outright foolishness. It wouldn't take you too long looking at the band's website forum before you found a few extensive threads on Nazis and Satanism started by some of their wacko fans (not to typify all Crystal Castles fans like this however. But you know, it's still Satanic Nazis) The dehumanisation of Alice Glass, coupled with her violent and unconventional sexual appeal, create something genuinely strange and original. It is, as I've pointed, the latest evolution in the legacy of era defining acts such as Elvis, The Beatles, Sex Pistols, Nirvana etc. though I accept that our mysterious Canadian warlocks are not quite in the same stratosphere. Yet.

Crystal Castles - Not In Love from Video Marsh on Vimeo.