Crystal Castles are an experimental, electronic band formed in 2004 in Toronto, Ontario consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi melancholic homemade productions. The duo released many limited vinyl EPs between 2006 and 2007, and two eponymous albums in 2008 and 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their debut album was included in NME's "Top 10 ... See more [+] 0 Greatest Albums of the Decade" list at #39. Ethan Kath met Alice Glass in Toronto when she was 15. He thought he had found an "undiscovered poet" after hearing her sing in her punk band Fetus Fatale. Kath asked her to record vocals over tracks he had been working on since 2003. After writing lyrics for 5 tracks, she went to a studio to record them, where an engineer secretly recorded her soundcheck. Kath discovered the secret soundcheck recording, named it "Alice Practice," and uploaded it online under the band name Crystal Castles, a lyric from a song in the cartoon She-Ra which featured the lyric "The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles." In 2005 the songs "Magic Spells", "Untrust Us", and "Alice Practice" grew popular online, and he began receiving offers from record labels. This news was especially shocking to Glass, having lost touch with Kath since the recording and up to that point unaware "Alice Practice" even existed. The song became the band's first official release in 2006 on a limited vinyl which was released by London's Merok Records. Ethan Kath met Alice Glass in Toronto when she was 15. He thought he had found an "undiscovered poet" after hearing her sing in her punk band Fetus Fatale. Kath asked her to record vocals over tracks he had been working on since 2003. After writing lyrics for 5 tracks, she went to a studio to record them, where an engineer secretly recorded her soundcheck. Kath discovered the secret soundcheck recording, named it "Alice Practice," and uploaded it online under the band name Crystal Castles, a lyric from a song in the cartoon She-Ra which featured the lyric "The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles." In 2005 the songs "Magic Spells", "Untrust Us", and "Alice Practice" grew popular online, and he began receiving offers from record labels. This news was especially shocking to Glass, having lost touch with Kath since the recording and up to that point unaware "Alice Practice" even existed. The song became the band's first official release in 2006 on a limited vinyl which was released by London's Merok Records. Crystal Castles musical style has been described as "ferocious, asphyxiating sheets of warped two-dimensional Gameboy glitches and bruising drum bombast that pierces your skull with their sheer shrill force, burrowing deep into the brain like a fever." To listen to Crystal Castles, according to the BBC, "is to be cast adrift in a vortex of deafening pain without a safety net. You get the feeling you could do anything in the world, but that 'anything' would ultimately mean nothing. Crystal Castles marks a nuanced emotional territory that dance music never covered before." With the release of their second album, their music made a "shift toward beauty and clarity," finding "different ways to mix icy synth pop with white-hot noise, as well as present them in an ever so slightly more polished form."
