Crystal Castles, an electronic group from the glorious Canadian province of Ontario, made up of the beat maker Ethan Kath and singer Alice Glass, have found themselves the unlikely ambassadors and best hope for chiptune as it tries to emerge beyond the enthusiast crowd. Despite their name (which echoes the title of Atari’s popular arcade title), Crystal Castles’ name is actually derived from She-Ra’s domain in the sky. Which is honestly kind of dumb, so I’ll continue to associate them with trackballs and Bentley Bear, thank you very much). The name probably wouldn’t hold much mystery for gamers if their music wasn’t such a perfect blend of chiptune and electronica with Glass’s ‘unique’ contributions of both singing and yelling added on top, but it is.
‘Courtship Dating’ – Crystal Castles
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Crystal Castles’ self-titled debut album was released in March of 2008 to relative critical acclaim, leading to the band’s support of heavy hitters such as Blur and Nine Inch Nails while also playing at some of the world’s biggest festivals. I guess at this point it looks like I’m trying to shill for a band that ultimately has little to do with video games and their music (both of which are requisites I try to stick to when considering a Wall of Sound topic), but with chiptune slow to catch on with any mainstream outlet, Crystal Castles, like it or not, is the best chance the chip tunes genre has at the moment – well until Ke$ha decides that a party anthem with BLAST PROCESSING would be ‘totally bitchin.’ (Ed Note: and it WOULD be)
While not every song consists entirely of music synthesized by video game sound chips, distinct influences associated with the chiptune identity are prevalent throughout the 16 track LP. It seems to reason that Crystal Castles’ success is almost entirely due to the simple addition that a majority of chiptune outfits simply ignore and omit – a vocalist. However, the same thing that gives them such a leg up on other bands in the genre is also it’s biggest handicap, as Glass’s singing style is a hate it or tolerate it kind of thing. This isn’t to say that her voice is abhorrent, but it does lie somewhere between incoherent high-pitched yelling and that of a below average female indie vocalist.
‘Untrust Us’ – Crystal Castles
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If you can get over the less then desirable state of the vocals on a majority of the tracks, their debut album makes for a pretty good listen. The standout ‘Untrust Us’ kicks off the album in such a spastic way as Glass rants repeatedly that ‘Cocaine is not good for you’ (A subject I would probably take her advice on) that I dare you not to hit the repeat button upon completion. As far as purely chiptune inspired tracks, ‘Alice Practice,’ ‘xxzxcuzx me,’ and ‘Courtship Dating’ are probably the best examples with beats that sound as if they could have been directly lifted from various video games from the late 80’s and early 90’s.
‘xxzxcuzx me’ – Crystal Castles
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So I guess the point of this article was to illustrate my mixed feelings about that band as I neither love nor hate them. I’m more of the feeling that Crystal Castles represents an interesting step in the right direction for chiptune. It’d be interesting to see what Kath could do with an established vocalist such as Emily Haines from Metric or Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or for that matter what would result from other chiptune artists such as Nullsleep, Bit Shifter, or even Anamanaguchi if they decided to collaborate with vocalists. Since chiptune represents such a specific niche of electronic music it might be unlikely to see other vocalist emerge, but who knows, a new genre might emerge from the ideas presented by Crystal Castles ushering a new group of musicians to take up the torch to try and spread the word about the wonders of chiptune.
The Wall of Sound Playlist
Courtship Dating
Untrust Us
xxzxcuzx me
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