Crystal Castles - 'Things get out of control'

Crystal Castles are the Canadian duo, Ethan Kath and Alice Grass. Their nightmarish cyborg punk, encapsulating noise and warped melodies have captured the hearts of club kids around the world.

Their self-titled debut album is filled with futuristic electro noises, holding moods and sensations that leave the listener spellbound but are sketchy on autobiographical detail. Crystal Castles are wreathed in mystery; they have given only a handful of interviews and agreed to few photoshoots – even fewer where they reveal their faces.

When I meet Kath, the band's multi-instrumentalist and producer, his eyes are drowsy and almost concealed behind a black hoodie. It's been a summer of constant travelling, and it looks to be catching up with him. But he's not lost sight of why they're doing this.

"Alice and I are focused on writing songs and playing live, and anything else around that doesn't matter," Kath says. "We say no to a lot of stuff. We just played a festival and every band was complaining they had two hours of press to do, but we just say no. If you don't want to do it, just say no. Alice and I have created a band to make music, not talk about it.

"To be honest, we are shocked by the attention we are getting. We never saw it coming. Our favourite bands are noise bands like Health. We were planning a basement tour together to play at parties. Health had the idea of doing a joint seven-inch where they covered us on one side and we sampled them on the other. That's what 'Crimewave' is. Next thing, it's all over the internet and this label from London want to release it. It wasn't meant to be a big thing."

Almost overnight, Crystal Castles were in a music scene they had never been a part of, in a country they'd never been too, far removed from their hidden existence in Toronto.

"We skipped the Toronto scene. We put the songs together there, but we never played any songs or gave out CDs. We make music for ourselves. It's a big surprise that anybody is listening."

"When 'Alice Practice' came out, everything changed. It sold out 500 copies in three days. When they said they wanted to make it the A-side, I told them it isn't even a song, just Alice testing the microphone. The next thing we are flown to London, we're sleeping on the Klaxons' floor and we only had a couple of songs to play. Coming here opened up the world for us."

Crystal Castles are a challenge for the listener, with myriad sounds crammed into their record, each song an attempt to do something new. From the twisted vocals of "Untrust Us" to the soothing sparseness of "Tell Me What To Swallow", Kath's approach to music is minimalist and organic.

"I use a 1996 desktop PC to record all the music, so it's a massive set of waves, and then I just chop them up. The equipment is old, but it's all I need. It's about the idea. You need to keep it simple. Once I have my tracks I'll go to a studio to record Alice's voice, but I take it back and mess around with it. Everything is lo-fi, but I want her voice to sound of a higher quality."

There's a sense of freedom in both band members, which seems to stem from a love of punk. "When I met Alice, she was a 14-year-old squatter living in an abandoned house with crusties. She lived and breathed Seventies and Eighties punk bands. I thought it would be interesting for her to write over these tracks. She loves what we do, but she doesn't even listen to electronic music, except for New Order."

Both Kath and Glass seem rootless, removed from any city or scene or indeed any sound that's around at the moment. It makes them seem entirely unpredictable, totally original – something the band enjoys.

"A lot of people want to tie us to a city," Kath says. "Yeah, we met in Toronto, found a room, made some songs, but then we disappeared. We left. We didn't play there, we were never part of what was going on there, so we do feel rootless. It is just how things happened.

Crystal Castles are often included in cool lists in magazines such as NME, and on teen TV shows like Skins. That lays them open to the charge of being mere fashion accessories for hip kids, and comment on the band is often laced with scepticism. Controversy seems to surround them. This year, the Castles have been accused of using an image of a black-eyed Madonna on merchandise without the artist's permission, and using samples without proper clearance. At Glastonbury, the stage antics of Glass, climbing the rigging and stage-diving, led the organisers to cut short their set. In March, Glass broke her ribs in a car crash.

"Things are always getting out of control. There are always problems," Kath says. "We liked the Madonna image because we thought it was a symbol of a strong female, and that even though she has been battered, she is still standing and staring defiantly. Nothing is going to knock her down. It's a perfect symbol of a strong female. All of a sudden, people think we are for battering women and it is all based on people's perceptions.

"We love when people dissect things and make their own meanings. It's just funny. Because our favourite bands were punk bands, those bands were either loved or hated and we see that happening to us now.

"At a festival in Brighton, they called the cops on Alice for riling up the crowd. After our show, the promoter said the police were there to arrest her and we needed to disappear, so we had to get in a getaway car. The live experience is all about Alice; she is a mental case on stage, and is just uncontrollable. She loses herself in the music. After the show, she is covered in bruises and she can't remember how they got there."

Indeed, if there is a star in this band it is, rather reluctantly, Alice. When I meet her she's sitting quietly, cigarette dangling from her hand. Tall, stick thin, with ashen skin and eyes scorched by thick black mascara, she looks as if she could have crashed to earth through a black hole from another galaxy.

Her lyrics conjure up visions like something out of a David Cronenberg film, a seemingly placid surface hiding a surreal darkness. "I wanted to say things I haven't heard anybody say before," she says. "There are a lot of bands where the music is all right but the lyrics are crap. I didn't want to be like that. I think everyone is a little psychotic, so they can be a little messed up."

You could say that: "Courtship Dating", for example, is about human taxidermy, the idea of preserving the beauty of a lover the way you would an animal. It's this dark element that sets Crystal Castles apart right now.

The album 'Crystal Castles' is out now on Different

MASKED MARAUDERS: THREE BANDS WHO LIKE TO STAY HIDDEN

Kiss
The New York heavy rock band's trademark face paint and costumes were just part of the high drama for which their stage shows were renowned – pyrotechnics, smoking guitars, spitting blood and fire-breathing. Each of the four members had his own individual painted mask: Demon (Gene Simmons) Starchild (Paul Stanley), Space Age (Ace Frehley) and Catman (Peter Criss). Today, the original band members Stanley and Simmons still perform with their same stage looks.

The Residents
It was on their 1981 tour that the avant-garde band's trademark eyeball masks and top hats (right) made their first appearance. They stayed behind their masks throughout shows, and kept their names secret.

The Knife
The Swedish duo were always mysterious. A cult band until their song "Heartbeats" made José Gonzalez a star when he covered it for a Sony Bravia TV advert, they didn't play live until 2006, seven years after they formed. They rarely perform now, and when they do make a public appearance they refuse to reveal their faces, hiding behind either Venetian masks or birds' beak masks.