Why?
The Camden Crawl is something of yearly summit for British indie. Each year over a Friday and Saturday in April virtually every bar and gig venue in Camden- British indie’s spiritual home- joins together to showcase a bounteous bill of newbies and up-and-comers. But more than is the case with most festivals, arranging your increasingly beer-doused self into some kind of schedule is tricky, especially when the headliners are all on at the same time at ten venues scattered across NW1. Thus the wise Crawler will pick a couple of acts, and do their best to beat the queues when it comes to it. I decided that my act would be Crystal Castles, because my mate told me they were good. That’s the kind of research that makes the blogosphere what it is, people! You’re welcome.
The Venue
Funny one, the Purple Turtle. I had never been to it before, and I have been to Camden many times. Perhaps this is indicative. There are probably 3289 more popular bars in Camden, but it takes the Crawl to crowbar the masses into a new one. It feels like a university indie club- a bit smelly, a bit dingy, and with a peculiar colour scheme (guess what colour predominates?). Above the dancefloor a couple of platforms are great for watching a gig (if you can get on them), and the dancefloor itself is perfectly sized...enough for a crowd, but not big enough for the atmosphere to diffuse towards the back. For the record, Orlando Weeks of the Maccabees was in the crowd, alongside his mucker Matt Horne from Gavin and Stacey. They were both ketamined up to their eyeballs and were snogging each other ferociously. Not really. Had a quick chat actually, and they seemed like nice chaps.What they look like.
Crystal Castles are a two-piece boy-girl band from Toronto. Ethan Kath was at the back drumming. Alice Glass was bloody everywhere else. Waif-like and mascara-caked in a knee-length black dress and a sweatshirt, she bounced and flapped and clenched and writhed and bent double and bent backwards with aplomb. She’s got the Wednesday Adams: The Elctropunk Years look nailed, but with a bobby bowl-cut. She looks like the kind of girl who wakes up in the morning and eats a pubescent boy whole. Sexy in an extremely scary way. In my beer-compromised state I found myself wandering if Alice Glass is the quintessential front girl of the electro-punk age. Don’t quote me on that, because it could be total rubbish. Still, though.What they sound like
Alice Glass comes from a semi-obvious vocal lineage. Less soulful than Karen O but with similar snarl. Ecstatic like the lady from The Rapture, attitude like the lady that sings with Bumblebeez. Perhaps the closest match is the high-pitched yapping of Le Tigre (if you only click one link on this page, make it this one...what a darn good song it is). But her style is tempered by the music, which is a sort of anthemic electro, with sparsely placed, widely undulating chords that sound snatched from the backing music of an old Atari space battle game. If you want to send me hate mail for using the word anthemic, I fully understand. To be honest, when you listen to the tracks on their own, they aren’t spectacular... there’s a lot of similar stuff out there at the moment. But this is heat of the moment music at its best.
Conclusion
And in the heat of the moment, Crystal Castles were superb. They came on stage, kicked the shit out Purple Turtle for little over half an hour, then left. No encore, which seemed quite sad at the time, but in hindsight makes sense. If you’ve been jumping around like a feral musical harpy for half an hour, making out like what is coming out of your throat is an immaculate and immaculately-timed primal scream, you don’t then come back on and do it at the crowd’s request. This shit aint planned, you know! They just happened to be driving their electro truck filled with decapitated doll’s heads and bondage gear around Camden and decided to storm a stage and let rip! Bravo.
pics: my crystal castles set
tags: crystal castles camden crawl purple turtle the maccabees matt horne gavin & stacey alice glass ethan kath electropunk karen o bumblebeez the rapture le tigre
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