Wrath of God (800 times slower)

Crystal Castles slowed down by 800 times, not sure who by and its been done loads before but still its good to listen to.

Believer....

What is it with people creating extensive fan-made music videos, these are great by the way...

Crystal Castles - Sad Eyes video

Alex Zelenka

Crystal Castles engineer, remixer and Producer DJ in his own right Alex Zelenka has dropped and great little track featuring Elle who used to front You Love Her Cos She's Dead. Check It Out.

Snow Wolf - Phantomsea

8 bit slime-punk post trance sounds from Snow Wolf and an album called Phantomsea. This is straight up positive vibes and slow dirge 8 bit anthems all Unicorn Kid/Crystal Castles style. What's really nice with this artist is the 8 bit bleeps are kept to a minimum and the vocals are really up there all mournful and low, the general pace is also really dirgy, all slow and drifting, slow build trance breaks that rise and scatter. Its great and the album is up on Bandcamp for "pay what you want"

Piča z hoven.

You can call this Witch House if you want but that seems to be pigeon-holing it and restricted its awesomeness way too much, this is Doom synth with awesome lyrics and proper dance beats, Goth atmospherics to kill for and slow-low grime and gas fuzz to light dancing energy beams of rave melody, Salem via CC doing future-step. Awesome!

The artist in question is the gratuitously named Czech band Piča z hoven. They have an album out called Doom na kraji lesa. Go buy it from Bandcamp now if you know what's good for you.

Spell Hound

Spell Hound are new, they're a boy girl duo of Evin and Mckaylea from Kansas making post Witch House, bass heavy doom-laden chillwave, citing Crystal Castles, You Love Her Cos She's Dead, Purity Ring and blog favourite Crim3s all as influnces. You can really here all those bands in there but they do it so well and with such love for that kind of sound that it becomes original and fresh. They can also really put a pop song together. So good. There are a bunch of free downloads on their Soundcloud so go grab em now!

Crystal Castles - Suffocation (HEALTH Remix) free download

AMAZING remix and its free to download from Crystal Castles Soundcloud.

I Phone video glitch of Crystal Castles remix!

This is a real thing! Uploaded to You Tube by friend, fellow Brightonian and member of The Mekano Set, Milk. Love the glitch!

"Video straight from an iPhone with a broken camera. Looks like old computer graphics but it's just the iPhone, no filters etc. Music is Crystal Castles Vietnam with a bit of The Mekano Set added."

My top 10 albums of 2010!

So here are my top ten albums of 2010. Each link on the album title goes somewhere where you can download or buy the offending item.

10. Indian Jewelry – Totaled

(This album is a great dream pop, Witch House chillwave thing that sounds so immersive that you instantly get swept away to a star filled land of woozy magic and night time beats. What makes this just superb though is that it works as a proper albums album, a cohesive little world contained within its 13 tracks! Its the more grown up sibling to MGMT and Yeasayers attempts at 2nd albums!)

9. Tinie Tempa – Disc-Overy

(Best British rap this year, dance centred and different and with the ambition of a giant, the production makes you cum in your pants, its kinetic and immensely dynamic, dancefloor gold> no more like platinum. Really great styling that is more dance and fashion than grime and bling. Really great lyrical skills. Everything about it awesome, its like getting a new top of the line mobile phone at Xmas, its just so damn cool! Plus Jay Z loves him and wants to help him break the US!)

8. Electric Wizard – Black Masses

(None more heavy, the heaviest most drugged up satan worshippers this side of the Galactic rim made a new album this year, its still the Hammer Horror Doom of past albums but its just deeper and fuller, more layers and more lyrics, more Black Sabbath and more virgin sacrifices, blood drips from the cd when you buy it in store!)

7. Das Racist - Sit Down, Man

(Partly a mixtape, partly an album all parts amazing these three dudes are more inventive and hip than anything, and its a mixtape that has loads of cool producers doing each track! Go get this its free some places or 50 cents from their Bandcamp. I blogged about them and this album a few days ago!)

6. Geneva Jacuzzi - Lamaze

(Geneva Jacuzzi is very weird, and this album is no deviation from that, finally released this year its a collection of artsy, posing, 80s retro, synth based, Italio pop songs from a reincarnated Cleopatra. It's lo-fi and pretentious but so hard to fault or dislike and has kinda been overlooked but is all kinds of awesome! Plus she is one of the hottest singers of this decade!)

5. Burzum - Belus

(He comes out of prison and single handedly manages to create an amazing black metal album that doesn't disappoint at all. Yes he probably is an awful person but that's the thing with black metal you kinda have to look past the crazy to see the beautiful. This is a great "almost" easy to listen to album that takes you in to the pine forest and cuts your legs off at the knees!)

4. Teengirl Fantasy - 7AM

(Future dance music that manages to combine and sparkle across a whole load of genres from R&B to chillwave, mellow House vibes and every bit of the 90s you can mine for audio gold, to well anything that gets in its way and yet it all sounds like Teengirl Fantasy, I can recognise Teengirl Fantasy remixes straight off from miles away and this album has to be hear for a thousand different reasons, often combined within one song. If you're not listening to this then you should be about to!)

3. †‡† - CDR

(Too perfect a sound to ignore †‡† is Witch House for superclubs. Its all slowed down trance synths heralding a slo-mo apocalypse, you cant dance to this really but your brain never really realises that. It all sounds like the best breakdown in the best dj set ever and any moment the earth will shift its magnetic alignment, line up with the planets and bring the roof down. Its a trance build up then never breaks. Imagine Kanye Wests "Power" video with †‡† as the music and you suddenly get it, this is an album in search of a million dollar vanity film project , its size is immense, its sound is more 2012 than 2010, listen to it and be afraid! That is if you can get hold of it as it might not be available on Disaro any more!)

2. Crystal Castles – II

(A follow up, hard to do 2nd album that covers all it failed to first time round, promises the world and delivers the moon on a long space elevator instead of a stick -ie teeth grindingly brilliant! Songs that stick in your head like post brain surgery complications and beats and sounds that live in their own little world where only this album is played on repeat in a club all night forever. I need to hear this album djed out on huge sound systems more than it has been this year!)

1. Salem - King Night
(well I had too didn't I what else this year had the build up, the excitement and the future kick of this! Dark and epic and close to and lo-fi all in one foul swoop. Crack filled and haunted and overdriven and out of tune and beautiful. Over all creating a sound that is already and will continue to be mined for inspiration. Its Hip Hop and Gothic and Noize band and trippy and shoe gaze and unique. Also it has the best final track out of any of the albums on my entire list, Killer is a straight out shoe gaze, overblown fuzzed out and glitchy track and the most beautiful thing ever and just on a song writing level it kicks ass!)

ℂЯ¥§†▲L ℂ▲§†LΞ§ - !/\/†!/V\▲†Ξ /// §†õЯ¥ õ£ ̧ÄÄÇ DЯ▲6 ΞD!†

ℂЯ¥§†▲L ℂ▲§†LΞ§ - !/\/†!/V\▲†Ξ /// §†õЯ¥ õ£ ̧ÄÄÇ DЯ▲6 ΞD!† from chessmess on Vimeo.

Recent blog favourite Story Of Isaac has gone and remixed Crystal Castles track Intimate from their last album and turned it into the most awesome, epic moody drag remix ever! Plus there's a video for it too with footage from the film Enter The Void!

Download the track from Soundcloud here.

ℂЯ¥§†▲L ℂ▲§†LΞ§ - !/\/†!/V\▲†Ξ /// DЯ▲6 - ΞD!† by Story of Isaac

Crystal Castles featuring Robert Smith!

Crystal Castles featuring Robert Smith on vocals for their track Not In Love!! No Words!!

Crystal Castles - Baptism Video hits!

Whole new shade of awesome!

White Ring release Suffocation 7 inch!

New York Witch House ghost riders White Ring have a 7" on white vinyl called Suffocation out August 3rd via purveyors of limited edition vinyl Hi Scores Recording Library.

Droney doomy, synths howling from beyond the veil and dance beats dredged from the canal outside of Crystal Castles mansion dried out and smoked by crack heads in need of a fix.

The digital download version has five remixes with it. One by Los Campesinos and one by Mater Susperia Vision! Awesome!

Pre order it here.