in the car on a drive this morning, i heard hipster runoffs episode of blog radio on xmu. they were laying down the sickest beats ever, to the likes of the twelves remix of metrics “help im alive” and a pretty nuts remix of vampire weekends “the kids dont stand a chance” which far surpassed my expectations, then a similar sounding remix of cut copy’s “lights and music”. while im usually sort of annoyed with his intentionally droll and nonsensical commentary, today was especially on point. “tell me about yourself. i want to know about you. i want us to be soul mates. like that death cab for cutie song. soulmates body. i want to love you. i believe in a thing called love. the darkness.” this really has nothing to do with anything, but it did keep me in the electronic spirit.

i first heard crystal castles around the same time that i first heard cut copy.  they were both completely different, but in my mind they both had a lot of the same thing going on, namely solid beats and electronic instrumentation.  sure, crystal castles was a lot harsher and sounded more nintento electronic (which happens to suit them well), but i still lumped them into one category.  so i was pretty surprised when i told a few others to give them a listen and they had crazy feedback like “why are they just screaming the whole time” and “my music was playing on random and this came on and freaked me out”.  this is probably my fault for grouping them with cut copy, but i still thought people should give them a shot, so i recommended this track specifically. some would argue it doesnt even sound like crystal castles. in the end, even if you dont like the screams and the 8-bit sounds, the chances of you enjoying this track are still strong to quite strong.

ill be seeing them in a few weeks at bonnaroo and im still deciding if im excited or scared for the experience. if memory suits me i think they may be one of the uber-late night acts, so theres a chance that people will be too worn out by that point to trample me. ive heard very mixed reviews of their live show, seems to be a love it or hate it thing, but i guess theyre a love it or hate it kind of band.

EDIT! 5/28 — thanks to katie for pointing it out, but weve just learned that this is actually a cover (an awesome cover, i might add) of the song “sex city” by van she. which explains the title of the song. interesting tidbit!

crystal castles – vanished

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