Crystal Castles (album)

Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Studio album / compilation album by Crystal Castles
Released	March 18, 2008
Recorded	2005–2007
Genre	Synth-punk; chiptune; noise; indie electronic;
Length	51:55
Label	Lies; Last Gang;
Producer	Crystal Castles; Ethan Kath; Squeak E. Clean; Matthew Wagner;
Crystal Castles chronology
Singles from Crystal Castles
	"Crimewave"; Released: August 13, 2007; "Air War"; Released: December 17, 2007; "Courtship Dating"; Released: March 31, 2008; "Vanished"; Released: June 14, 2008;

Crystal Castles is the debut studio album by Canadian electronic music duo Crystal Castles; at the time of its release, the group consisted of producer Ethan Kath and singer Alice Glass. The two met each other in 2004 and both had an interest in noise acts like AIDS Wolf & The Sick Lipstick. This inspired the two to start a noise music project, but instead of guitars, they would use electronic sounds made with a circuit-bent Atari 5200–which effectively led to the media pigeonholing the act as chiptune, despite the fact that the members themselves didn't deliberately intend this.

Despite being labeled as the group's debut album, Crystal Castles is a compilation of sold-out singles that popularized the duo internationally, as well as unreleased demos recorded in 2004 along with two new songs: "Courtship Dating", and "Tell Me What to Swallow". The content on the LP includes samples of tracks from acts such as Death from Above 1979, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Luciano Berio, Drinking Electricity, and Van She. Some professional music journalists highlighted its random and unpredictable nature as well as its unique style and sound.

Crystal Castles was released on March 18, 2008, by Lies Records and Last Gang Records, and performed well commercially in the United States, allowing it to make its way onto Billboard charts such as Independent Albums, Top Dance/Electronic Albums, and Top Heatseekers. It also charted in Australia, France, Ireland, Scotland and the United Kingdom. Many professional critics had complimentary opinions towards the album, with the writer for Delusions of Adequacy calling it "one of the best electronic albums of the year". The record ranked in the top 20 on numerous year-end lists by publications such as Pitchfork, NME, and PopMatters and landed on lists of the best albums of the 2000s by NME and Complex. In 2013, Crystal Castles was placed at number 477 on NME's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

^ Jayasuriya, Mehan (June 4, 2010). "Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles". PopMatters. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
^ Phares, Heather. "Crystal Castles (II) – Crystal Castles". AllMusic. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
^ Hoby, Hermione (November 11, 2012). "Crystal Castles: (III) – review". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
^ Limey, Cor (2008). "Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles" Archived 2019-04-12 at the Wayback Machine. Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved August 6, 2017.

[1] Jayasuriya, Mehan (June 4, 2010). "Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles". PopMatters. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2016.

[2] Phares, Heather. "Crystal Castles (II) – Crystal Castles". AllMusic. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013. Retrieved August 27, 2013.

[3] Hoby, Hermione (November 11, 2012). "Crystal Castles: (III) – review". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved August 27, 2013.

[TinyMixTapes-4] Limey, Cor (2008). "Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles" Archived 2019-04-12 at the Wayback Machine. Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved August 6, 2017.

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