Crystal Castles was a Canadian electronic music group formed in 2005 in Toronto, Ontario, by songwriter-producer Ethan Kath and singer-songwriter Alice Glass. The group was known for their unpredictable live performances and simple, emotionally sad recordings made at home. Between 2006 and 2007, they released many limited-edition vinyl singles. From 2008 to 2016, they also released four official albums.

In October 2014, Alice Glass announced she was leaving the band, stating personal and professional reasons. She was later replaced by Edith Frances. In 2017, during a tour, Alice Glass accused Ethan Kath of sexual misconduct while she was part of the band. This led to the cancellation of the remaining tour dates. Since then, Crystal Castles has not released any new music or performed publicly, and there have been no updates about the group’s activities.

History

Ethan Kath (born Claudio Palmieri) met Alice Glass (born Margaret Osborn) in Toronto, Ontario, when she was in the 10th grade and he was 10 years older. Kath was already known in Toronto’s music scene, having appeared on local television with his previous band, Kïll Cheerleadër. A few years later, Kath asked Glass to sing on tracks he had been working on since 2003. The recordings created the song "Alice Practice," which was not released for six months.

After the track was shared online, it gained attention, and the duo decided to officially release it. They chose their stage name "Crystal Castles" from a line in the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power: "The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles." AllMusic lists Kraftwerk, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Pet Shop Boys, and Yello as influences for the band.

"Alice Practice" became the band’s first limited vinyl release in 2006. After performing the song on the British television show Skins, demand for the Alice Practice EP increased quickly. Many limited-edition 7-inch vinyl singles followed in 2006 and 2007 on various independent labels, including two on London’s Trouble Records. In February 2008, Kath said his goal was to "make the most annoying sounds ever [for Alice to] scream over and then we'll try to open for Melt Banana."

On March 18, 2008, Lies Records collected most of the vinyl singles and released them on CD and 12-inch vinyl for the band’s debut album, Crystal Castles, which also included many unreleased tracks and three songs recorded for the collection. As Kath had said, some tracks, like "XXZXCUZX ME," were intentionally made to sound unpleasant. This debut album was listed by NME as number 39 on its "Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade" list.

In mid-2008, Pitchfork and the Torontoist blog reported that Crystal Castles used Trevor Brown’s artwork without permission. The image, showing singer Madonna with a black eye, became the band’s logo. The issue was resolved when the band bought the rights to use the image from Brown.

In one of Kath’s early unreleased demos, he used a sample without permission. Years later, his record label discovered the track and uploaded it to the label’s MySpace page without Kath’s permission or credit to the original song. The track, "Insectica" (CC vs Lo-Bat version), used clips from a song by Lo-bat called "My Little Droid Needs a Hand," released under a Creative Commons license. Another track, "Love and Caring," used the kick and snare from Covox’s "Sunday."

Crystal Castles toured and performed at many festivals worldwide to support the album, including Ireland’s Oxegen Festival, the All Points West Music & Arts Festival in New Jersey, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, the Heineken Open'er Festival in Poland, and the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England. They led a Vice magazine tour across the UK in November 2007 and the 2008 NME New Noise tour in the UK.

Crystal Castles performed at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2008, where Glass’s energetic stage performances, such as climbing rigging and stage-diving, caused organizers to shorten their set. The band played five shows with Nine Inch Nails in August 2008 and performed at Connect 2008 and the Iceland Airwaves festival. During Halloween, they held a gig in Los Angeles where Glass damaged the drum kit.

They supported Blur during the first of two comeback shows in Hyde Park, London, in July 2009. They also performed at the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Tennessee. Back in Toronto, Crystal Castles performed at the Sound Academy as part of the Time Festival.

The band began recording their second album in various locations, including an abandoned church in Iceland, a self-built cabin in northern Ontario, a garage behind an abandoned drug store in Detroit, and Paul Epworth’s London studio. Kath said, "I recorded most of the record in the coldest winter in decades in a church without heat in Iceland. It was so cold that when I listen back, I can hear myself shivering. I chose it because it felt right." In December 2009, Kath gave Alice Glass a CD-R with 70 instrumental tracks, and she recorded vocals on 35 of them.

The group’s second album, released as Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles (II), or simply (II), came out on May 24, 2010. Their music became more refined and focused, blending synth pop and loud rock sounds with greater skill. In April 2010, an early mix of the album leaked, causing the label to release it earlier than planned. The album charted in the UK at number 48, the US at number 188, and Australia at number 25. The first two singles were "Celestica" and "Baptism." The third single, "Not in Love," featuring Robert Smith from the Cure, became the band’s highest-charting single at that time.

To support the album, the band played festivals such as Latitude, Glastonbury 2010, RockNess 2010, the Pohoda Festival in Slovakia, the Exit Festival in Serbia, the Emmabodafestivalen in Sweden, BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Wales, and the 2010 Estrella Levante SOS 4.8 in Spain. They also did a Full-Length UK tour in November 2010 and headlined Hard Festival 2010.

In January 2011, Alice broke her ankle and performed some shows on crutches. The band headlined the Shockwaves NME Awards Tour 2011 in the UK alongside Magnetic Man, Everything Everything, and the Vaccines. They also performed at the 2011 Ultra Music Festival in Miami, the Danish NorthSide Festival in Aarhus, Australia’s Big Day Out festival, and Bestival, alongside the Cure, whose vocalist Robert Smith

Musical style

Crystal Castles' music was described by reviewer Jack Shankly as "loud and intense sounds filled with distorted sounds similar to those from a Gameboy [sic] and strong, loud beats that feel powerful, breaking through the skull with their sharp and loud energy, moving deeply into the brain like a fever." In a 2008 review for the BBC, Sophie Hammer wrote that listening to Crystal Castles "feels like being caught in a powerful storm of loud and painful sounds with no way to escape. […] You might feel like you can do anything, but nothing really matters in the end."

Members

• Alice Glass – vocals, songwriter from 2005 to 2014
• Ethan Kath – instruments, songwriter, record producer, vocals from 2005 to 2017
• Edith Frances – vocals from 2015 to 2017

• Christopher Chartrand – drums from 2006 to 2017
• Cameron Findlay – drums from 2007 to 2008
• Thomas Cullen – drums in 2008
• Mike Bell – drums from 2008 to 2009

Tours

• Crystal Castles Tour (2007 to 2009)
• Crystal Castles II Tour (2010 to 2012)
• Crystal Castles III Tour (2012 to 2013)
• Amnesty (I) Tour (2016 to 2017)