May 2010

After all of the awful shit Crystal Castles did in the wake of their success, a whole lot of people hoped their new album would be terrible. Sorry, haters: 2010’s Crystal Castles improves on their (also self-titled) debut in nearly every way. The latest from the Toronto-based electro duo is reminiscent of the jump forward taken by Deerhunter between Cryptograms and Microcastle, or Fuck Buttons from Street Horrrsing to Tarot Sport. Like those acts, Crystal Castles have reconciled with their detractors instead of running from them. By staying true to themselves, they’ve created a more focused, propulsive, and satisfying follow-up.

Some listeners might miss the sonic shock that came from hearing the sub-zero Italo chill of “Magic Spells” sequenced next to the 8-bit electrocution of “Xxzxcuzx Me”, but clashes like those wore out their welcome over the span of 16 tracks. Here, Crystal Castles embrace continuity and broaden their dynamic range beyond the primitive loops that once constituted the foundations of their songs. The core elements of first single “Celestica”, for example, are pure shoegaze, but the waves of distortion that scrape across its chorus squash any concerns that the duo has gone soft. For a band known for its harsh midrange, this record reveals a surprising amount of depth in headphones.

Crystal Castles are far more pop than before, too, which was probably an inevitable move, but hardly a bad one. Like “Celestica”, “Suffocation” and “Empathy” mix fanged distortion and sparkly synths, while tracks like “Vietnam”, “Not in Love”, “Intimate”, and the rave-tinged “Baptism” arm the record with loads of could-be singles. But despite this shift toward beauty and clarity, Crystal Castles still rip into some punishing, epileptic moments, like the distorted bass riff on “Birds” and the shredded brutality of “Doe Deer”. The fluidity of the music is matched by Alice Glass’ frequently manipulated vocals, a showcase for someone too often pigeonholed as a bratty screamer. She sounds at times like everything from a Leslie guitar (“Empathy”) to a Cloverfield-style monster (“I Am Made of Chalk”). The obvious comparison is the Knife’s Silent Shout, but where Karin Dreijer-Andersson often manipulates her voice to play characters, Glass is just as disturbing for her dehumanization.

As rewarding as this new album is, it’s even more impressive when you consider its context: Crystal Castles may have come on at the tail-end of the blog-house/nu-rave/French-touch mini-rage, but they’ve now transcended it, moving from scene linchpin to indie stars. The reason is simple: Crystal Castles are a singular act who rarely sound like anyone other than themselves. So just as Ladytron’s The Witching Hour did for electroclash in 2005, Crystal Castles seems destined to close the door on a fleeting, once-fashionable genre in the best way possible: by making an artistic leap beyond its boundaries.

John MacLean likes to get confrontational about dance music. Which is understandable: He’s a straight dude who came to house via indie and noise and he seems bugged out that others are doing the same. So he tells interviewers about how hipster kids dance wrong out of discomfort, how the heavy electro/Ed Banger side of house is just a way of maintaining segregated sexuality on the dancefloor, how journalists only pretend to like certain token artists so they can hide their intrinsic homophobia. It’s strident stuff, borne out of years of discovery and elation and frustration, and whether or not any of it goes deeper than setting up and assaulting strawmen, it at least comes across as the worldview of a man who still feels compelled to defend his own house music cred.

But none of those statements speak as loudly as his actual mixing does. MacLean’s installation into the long-running DJ-Kicks series is all the proof you really need of his breadth of knowledge and ability to craft a good set– all-vinyl, one take, no computers. Condensing 18 tracks (including a couple of well-timed reprises and callbacks) into a 72-minute stream of constantly shifting grooves without losing the fundamental euphoria of the original tracks’ momentum isn’t something that comes easy to bandwagoneers. And MacLean goes past tastemaker collection-flaunting into something deeper, a mix that sounds like its heart’s been beating for 20 years.

That’s no small feat considering how many of the tracks here are less than five years old. There’s always been a pocket of house that skews classicist– MacLean and some of his fellow DFA pals amongst them. And it says something about the grip that label holds on the imaginations of the indie-dance set that the mix opens with the Ian Breno dub of “Happy House” (retitled “Feliz Casa” here), then segues into Still Going’s bass-reverb monster “Spaghetti Circus” and makes both tracks sound like they’ve been a part of the house continuum for a few decades rather than a few years. Even across regions and scenes– Giom’s deep house cut “I Know You Were Right”, the Paradise Garage-evoking “Planets (The Revenge Lost Groove)” from 6th Borough Project, the progressive house bliss of Danny Howells’ “Laid Out (Fully Horizontal Mix)”– there’s a vintage commonality. And when a ringer like Theo Parrish’s dub of Rick Wilhite’s 96 anthem “Get on Up!!” actually does show up, it fits perfectly.

Sweetening the deal is the amount of unreleased material in the mix, much of it contributed by friends and like-minded artists. “Take Me” by Australian DJ A+O, re-molds the rubbery pulse and elastic bassline that Detroit techno classic “Nude Photo” popularized, yet it transcends superficial nostalgia with a stunning vocal hook. At the other end of the spectrum is “Like a Child”, recorded by Juan MacLean keyboard player Dennis McNany under the assumed name “Jee Day”, which layers shimmering, reverbed vocals onto a pseudo-acid bassline to immense effect. And then there’s the final peak, “Feel So Good”, a new Juan MacLean track that builds off a supple drum loop from the late Jerry Fuchs and a coolly detached vocal from LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang. All this is the kind of stuff indie-dance fans have good reason to go crazy over, and no cultural anxiety should keep them away from it. A truncated, looped refrain from Florian Meindl’s “Here Today Gone Tomorrow” comes at an early peak in the mix– “house sees no race, creed or–“… fill in the blank with whatever you want after that, because MacLean’s set sounds truly universal.

Talking to us over the summer about his then-forthcoming album, Steven Ellison said he felt like he was progressing as a producer. “I’m finally getting to the point where I can make the kind of records… that I wanted to make when I was younger, things that I dreamed about making,” he told us. That sounds modest– he’s been persistently pursuing a singular vision for years now– but his first two albums did share common traits with his forebears. Even the excellent Los Angeles from 2008 took some of its cues from J Dilla, one of Ellison’s idols. But with Cosmogramma, it’s not enough anymore to talk about Ellison’s sound as “post-Dilla” or even “post hip-hop.” It’s his sound now.

Indeed, Cosmogramma is an intricate, challenging record that fuses his loves– jazz, hip-hop, videogame sounds, IDM– into something unique. It’s an album in the truest sense. Even on Los Angeles, which hung together well as a full-length, there were moments you could pick out as singles or highlights– the distorted pop of “Camel” or the maniacal electro-house of “Parisian Goldfish”. But Cosmogramma is conceived as a movement– bits of one song spill into the next, and its individual tracks make the most sense in the context of what surrounds them. In this sense, it feels almost like an avant-garde jazz piece, and so it takes more than a few listens to sink in– one or two spins and you’re still at the tip of the iceberg.

Jazz is a big influence on the record, and it’s a good place to start talking about the individual sections that make up the whole. Ellison is, of course, the nephew of jazz great Alice Coltrane and has said in interviews that his albums are in part dedicated to her. That’s clear on Cosmogramma, as there are distinct passages that pursue an elaborate kind of digital jazz and the album is constructed to move through different sections, as one of Coltrane’s might. There are roughly three of these passages– the first is an aggressive three-song suite based loosely on videogame sounds. On “Nose Art”, FlyLo puts raygun squiggles alongside woozy synths, grinding mechanical noises, and about 10 other sonic elements. Like much of the album, it sounds almost frustratingly unstable until you hear it a few times and the pieces begin to interlock and congeal.

True to its title, Cosmogramma then moves through a heady astral stretch and finally a more downtempo jazz-heavy period. The latter partly serves as a necessary breather from the complicated sounds earlier on. FlyLo shows ridiculous talent in each section– the things he can do with and to beats just aren’t common. In “Zodiac Shit”, he makes a heavy, loping bass thump sputter out on cue, creating a physical rumbling quality. The beat of “Computer Face // Pure Being” trips over itself again and again like clothes tumbling in a dryer. These aren’t just tricks– in each case they push the song toward a groove. And it’s not just beats: “Satelllliiiiiiite” is as dreamy as anything FlyLo’s done to date, its distorted vocal samples and steam-building arrangement not unlike something out of Burial’s repertoire and frankly just as good.

The song that will likely get the most attention here is “…And the World Laughs With You”, a collaboration with Thom Yorke. Obviously an electronic-music fan, Yorke has done these guest spots before (for Modeselektor and others) and with such a high-profile contributor it’s easy to make the song all about him. But FlyLo doesn’t pay Yorke any undue deference, just treats his vocals like another element to manipulate and weave into the mix. It’s so subtle, in fact, that if you’re not paying close attention you might miss his appearance altogether. It’s this level of confidence and commitment to his vision that ultimately makes Cosmogramma so fascinating. FlyLo is working at the height of his creative powers right now, and the scary thing is it’s reasonable to think he could get better.