Crystal Castles – Alice Practice

Salvador Dali once quipped, “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.” You can imagine Crystal Castles making a similar claim about themselves, such is the MDMA-charged, strobe-strafing intensity they conjure at their live shows.

Previously best known for a much blogged-about remix of Klaxons’ Atlantis To Interzone, the Toronto-based duo are now building a reputation as innovators in their own right, celebrated for their hectic blend of glitchy techno and old-school video-game sound-effects. Consequently, they are so agonisingly now that today’s featured track, Alice Practice, is slated to feature in an upcoming episode of Skins.

There’s humanity amid the bleeding-edge beats, though. Singer Alice Glass’ yowling, edge-of-a-nervous-collapse vocals recall Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, and there are shades of The Knife’s spooky, ice-bound electro. As with that band, there's the unsettling sense that the deadpan digital exterior masks a howling emotional void underneath.

You can hear Alice Practice on Myspace, and hear their Klaxons remix here.