crystal castles are so frustrating. production wise, they're one of the more interesting electronic acts out there, but they have no concept of harmony at all and, as a result, they end up more or less coming off as a third rate ebm/goth act c. 1998. it all fades into itself. a medieval blur. i mean, check out late 90s delerium to see what i mean.
but you know what would be really interesting? if they collaborated a bit with kate stelmanis, because the two acts have precisely what the other lacks - austra is thick with harmonies, but often suffers from dead production.
Fabio Patanè
What you state is interesting as rather articulate , but I believe it is actually not true. I think you're confusing the concept of "harmony" with that of "orchestration" or "arrangement". Or even "production" (which, again, is something different). As an electronic project, CC could actually be accused of shabby, simplistic and repetitive rythmic parts, if only. But, as with every great band, CC is about a defined aesthetics: if you get it and like it, you'll embrace it for what it is. If not, no much point in criticising. But please bother mention a specific track by Delerium: I'm interested. but don't want to come across some homonimous band by mistake. Regards.
deathtokoalas
no, i meant it the way i said it. when i said the production is interesting, that included finding the rhythmic programming (and, to an extent, the orchestration) interesting. harmonically, though, it's dead. it's almost microtonal; i'd suspect the singer is probably technically tone deaf.
that being said, i could see how somebody could respond with "it's interesting because it's minimal" but that's exactly what i'm rejecting.
actually, maybe the confusion is that i didn't specifically state "the subpar vocalist is fundamentally incapable of harmonizing with the much more interesting music", leading you to think i was talking about synth parts or something.
it puts them in a tough spot. if they want to be sleigh bells (or meg lee chin), why not go out and do it? that they don't clearly demonstrates that they want to do something more musical than that. so, this is why it's frustrating. it could be pretty compelling, if only it had a more talented singer fronting it.
to reiterate, the flip side of that is that a lot of the more interesting singers in the general genre are working with much less interesting producers. which is also frustrating...
Fabio Patanè
Harmonically, CC's music is not "dead": it's not classical composition, nor as plain as it may seem to a first hearing (lots of subtle work in the background: wear some headphones, and give it one more try!) I believe you're still confusing concepts: "production" with "arrangement" (producers usually help shaping arrangements amongst other things, but prodution involves lots more aspects, and arrangements can theoretically be exclusive care of the songwriters), and possibly music harmony with vocal harmony. Ask a decent musician to explain all these issues: it may end up in some useful and interesting learning (no disrespect intended). And, I don't espect A.Glass to do vocal harmonies (it would be corny!), although if you pay enough attention to their songs, a certain degree of vocal harmonisations are artificially created by Khan on a regular basis, and are often present in CC songs. Also, I noticed Joy Division are featured in your channel: would you expect their music to feature some vocal harmonies? Harmonically, their songs are indeed a good example of the rather uninteresting! And, would you expect Curtis to deliver a traditional singing part? Or rather, was JD music about something else, and coming from a brand new approach? You see, there's a lot of DIY and punk aesthetics in CC music which often gets unoticed.
deathtokoalas
i would consider myself a decent musician. i don't know what your attempt at mansplaining is really all about, but if i wasn't clear that the comment is about a lack of vocal harmony the first time then i certainly was the second time. i'm not confused, you're just failing at being a smug asshole.
joy division were a punk band. crystal castles are a pop band. i could swing the criticism to "alice glass doesn't have the aggression to be an interesting punk vocalist", but she's not trying to be a punk vocalist so i'd be missing the intent.
Fabio Patanè
You might even be a decent musician, but you still have clearly shown to have a comnfused idea of concepts such as harmony, harmonisation, production, programming, arrangements and so on. And, most importantly, you are a disrispectful individual, therefore no longer a decent interlocutor for me. Good luck. Ah!, you might check out some American AOR music: lots of vocal harmonies there for your pleasure...
deathtokoalas
indeed. fabio knows exactly what i'm thinking, because he's got that great big penis that he came in here and started swinging around. obviously.
...and he'd have to know what i'm thinking, in my brain, to be able to make the claim he has. i simply wasn't descriptive enough (except when i clarified otherwise) to come to any other conclusion. i must be interpreting the music the same way he is, and because i'm suggesting that i'm not, i must therefore be confused.
generally, fabio, when you're not sure what people are thinking (and if you stop and THINK for a moment, you'll realize that's the only possible circumstance here), the way to go about getting a better understanding is to ask, not to pull asinine assumptions out of your great big giant cock.
pro-tip: women tend to like it when you take that approach.
Fabio Patanè
Instead of fantasising about my "great big penis" (which I wish I had - and sorry to be such a let-down...), if you were an intellectually honest person you'd have recosidered what you wrote and stated, and see therefore where I'm coming from. Instead, you keep on being disrispectful, on top of showing a funny sexual frustration which I feel is slightly off-topics here... Take care.
deathtokoalas
the irony and surreality of claiming that i'm the one that's being "disrispectful" (sic) and intellectually dishonest is really off the wall.
FatherAcid
I totally get what you're saying about Alice, but I actually got a chance to see Crystal Castles LIVE and my view of Alice got a lot better. I already kind of liked her before, but after seeing Crystal Castles live, I really understand why she's tied to Ethan. She offers a lot of power to Ethan's already very powerful instrumentals. Her enthusiasm in both performance and voice is contagious and rather entrancing. I know you're referring purely to the songs themselves and what you're hearing of their final, polished recording, but if you get a chance to see Crystal Castles live, I highly suggest it. It might improve your view on this singer and you might grow more of a taste for her voice knowing what excitement it offers to the songs.
ashley x
they do it on purpose as a sort of anti-music and i think all in all if you know what shes truly trying to say its beautiful :)
Ben Sheridan
They are not whatever. Who cares. I like ko killing them. They are teddy bears with claws, I bet a pack of koalas would bed devour you. at you in a confrontation where you are both starving, the koalas will tear you to shreds anoalas, so fuck you, nEnjoy ze noise.
daph dc
Crystal castles a pop band? alice glasses's and ethan's influences are punk and metal bands. that said, they never intend to make pop music. they are an electronic music act.
FatherAcid
They do give a shit about harmonies. If they didn't, their music would be absolute and utter garbage and it's not.
daph dc
i know. if you'd paid attention, i said vocal harmonies. do you consider screaming vocal harmonies? cause she does that a lot. ugh. i love her to death
kilva
Yes, they do in fact give a fuck about vocal harmonies. If you push aside the fact that it's loud, and "screaming," you might realize it. A scream can still hold a note, and in fact they're showing that such a raw sample can be used in music, in rhythm and actually sound pleasing.
Of course, this is much easier to appreciate if you listen to things like Breakcore/etc.
deathtokoalas
this is kind of what i'm getting at. it kind of contradicts itself in a way that doesn't often work out. just as a comparison to this, and i'd never suggest anybody should even try and emulate this band, but i'm a big fan of an act called skinny puppy that mixed difficult and often distorted lyrics with very abstract electronic music. if this is trying to be that, it gives too much away in it's neat, poppy, electroclash presentation. which is to say that it's clearly created to reach a conventional audience (and check out the record 'last rights' to hear something that makes no attempt to hit a conventional audience). the vocals really get in the way of that....
...and it sort of comes off like somebody trashing a rembrandt, rather than somebody creating a picasso, if the analogy means something.
i mean, it would be one thing if the person doing the beats decided "fuck it, i'm going to town with this noisy shit", but he's never done that - he's always focused on taking a catchy pop sound and embellishing it a little to make it more interesting. it's pop music, it's just (very) slightly abstracted pop music. if the guy producing this wants me to interpret it the same way i interpret skinny puppy or psychic tv, he's got a lot of work to do in making it more interesting. but, he doesn't - he wants me to interpret it the same way i interpret ladytron. the vocals often make that almost impossible...
stated differently, it's not abstract enough to be experimental music, and the lack of vocal attention makes it too atonal to be pop music, so it becomes difficult to connect with and gets thrown into this pile of "frustrating music".
...and it's definitely possible to succeed as 'pop' and 'experimental' simultaneously. you can run through a thousand examples from debussy through to the beatles and into nine inch nails. it's not an empty intersection at all.
...but when you're trying to be both and fail at both, it's....it's just frustrating...
(but i need to be clear that i don't think this is trying to be experimental. i think it's trying to be an updated pop sound. i do think that some of the comments here have clarified that the band has an "emo audience", and that maybe clarifies a few things in terms of it being updated pop. it's still frustrating, but maybe partially because i'm too old for emo.)
kilva
I tl;dr'd most of your quadrupost but if you don't think CC's music is experimental enough to be labelled as such, that's your opinion. I feel like they made the most that they could out of the most unharmonious stems, and it's beautiful that they made such raw stems and samples flow so well into the three albums they've created.
