You can’t trust trendy types… Crystal Castles under siege.
Those who move in nerdy (and proud) circles will undoubtedly have heard of the recent Crystal Castle debacle, involving the infringment of 8-bit artist Lo-Bat’s creative common’s licence by basically taking a entire piece of his music and screaming over the top of it.
If you haven’t heard, read about it here at the 8-Bit Peoples website (and check out some of their awesome trax while you are there).
Also, hear the tracks for yourself:
What really irks me about this whole situation is that Crystal Castles have been so eager to distance themselves from the 8-bit scene from the get-go, presumably because of the inevitable (and unfair) perception of the scene as nerdy and un-hip:
”It was only to create annoying sounds. That keyboard was made back in 2004 and then we learned about this whole 8-bit scene, which we don’t really have anything to do with. It’s a completely different world.”
Too cool for the chiptunes scene, but not too cool to steal its music…
Presumably they were too busy doing each other’s hair to learn how to use a simple tracking program and write their own tunes. And let’s ignore their stupid claims to have ‘made’ their keyboard.
I’ve got no problem with sampling: Judi does it sometimes. It’s another useful tool in the musical box. But what I like about sampling is that it’s a great chance to make a statement about what you are sampling…
When Negativland took their scalpel to U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, it was brutal parody, whereas when Public Enemy sampled James Brown it was a righteous reclamation and reinvention of the black power message that burned through the best period of the Godfather’s back catalogue.
It doesn’t have to be that deep: maybe you just dig someone else’s music: Afrika Bambaataa loved those ‘funky Germans’, Kraftwerk, and I’m pretty sure that De La Soul love Hall and Oates as much as I do.
Sampling and hiding it is stealing, in my book. They were obviously trying to pass someone else’s hard work off as their own. No matter how post-modern I like to think I am, that kind of behaviour sickens me.
Duchamp might have signed someone else’s urinal, but he didn’t claim that he invented pissing.
I’m interested to see how this unfolds. Presumably the kids that like Crystal Castles won’t give a damn, but it’ll be fascinating to see if the idiot press who’ve been celebrating the ‘new sound’ of this band will be prepared to admit they were way off the mark.
-Crystal (no castle) Tripps