Biography
You are viewing an old version of this wiki. View the latest version.
-
Years Active
2003 – 2017 (13 years)
-
Founded In
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
-
Members
- Alice Glass (2005 – 2014)
- Edith Frances (2015 – present)
- Ethan Kath (2003 – present)
Crystal Castles is an electronic band which formed in 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and consists of producer Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass. They are named after the lyrics "The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles" and "Crystal Castles, the source of all power" both from the theme song for She-Ra's fortress. Crystal Castles are known for their melancholic electronic sound and their explosive live shows. Their debut album was included in NME's "Top 50 Albums of the Decade".
Initally the band was a solo project started by Ethan Kath in December 2003. Ethan later discovered Alice Glass singing in a noise-punk band, and thought he had found the "missing ingredient" to his music. In 2004 Ethan gave Alice 60 instrumental tracks and in April 2005 she recorded vocals over five instrumentals. The band's first single Alice Practice was actually a microphone test by Glass. She was not aware that the recording existed until London UK's Merok Records asked to release the track on vinyl. The limited release sold out in 3 days.
In 18 March 2008 they released their debut album entitled Crystal Castles. This album reached #47 on UK Albums Chart, #6 on US Top Electronic Albums, #13 on US Top Heatseekers, and #32 on US Independent Albums. Crystal Castles received great reviews and ranked #39 on NME Magazine "Top 50 Albums of the Decade". They issued four singles: Alice Practice (1 June 2006), Crimewave (Crystal Castles vs HEALTH) (13 August 2007), Air War (17 December 2007), and Courtship Dating (31 March 2008).
Crystal Castles are known not only for their own efforts as a band, but also for commissioned remixes for number of groups, including Hunting For Witches by Bloc Party, and Atlantis to Interzone by friends and label mates, Klaxons.
In mid-2008, Crystal Castles were involved in two controversies related to artwork permissions and samples in their earliest unreleased songs. Crystal Castles used Trevor Brown's artwork (depicting a black-eyed Madonna) without permission. - In one of Kath's earliest, unreleased demos, he incorporated a sample without permission. The track, "Insectica (CC vs Lo-Bat Version)", uses clips chopped out of a song by Lo-bat called "My Little Droid Needs a Hand", released under a Creative Commons license. Another track called "Love and Caring", samples the kick and snare from Covox's "Sunday".
In 23 April 2010 the duo released their second album Crystal Castles (II). This album reached #48 on UK Singles Chart, #8 on UK Dance Albums Chart, #24 on US Digital Albums, #6 on US Top Electronic Albums, and #3 on US Top Heatseekers. Crystal Castles (II) has been met with mostly positive reviews from critics. To date, two singles were issued: Doe Deer and Celestica.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
