This morning, Alice Glass formally announced that she was leaving Crystal Castles. The news bummed a lot of people out, including longtime supporter and recent FADER feature subject iLoveMakonnen. Here, Atlanta's golden million dollar baby attempts to pinpoint what made Crystal Castles so special.
I feel their music. It connects with me in a different way than other people's music does, and I'm pretty sad they broke up. My cousin Dream Panther put me on to them; he played me the song "Crimewave." That was, I wanna say, 2008. I was visiting him in LA and he played me that shit—it was a video performance—and I was like, "Wow, what the fuck is this?" It was a life-changing experience for me. I've always stayed a fan and have always looked out for their new shit on my own.
One of the only shows I went to here in Atlanta was a Crystal Castles show. I went with one friend, because a lot of my other friends aren't into Crystal Castles—or they weren't at the time. The show was great: the energy was great, the fans were real fans, I was going real crazy. Everybody enjoyed it. It was an experience. I want to have that energy. I want to have that feeling, like, I want people to get the feeling from my music that I got from Crystal Castles' music. I remember hearing their album II for the first time. I put it on in my house and that whole night I was in a trance, from the first song. I felt that energy come over my room. It changed everything for me, really. I started listening to their music hard for the whole year. I still have never stopped listening to it.
