Crystal Fighters

Last spring my friend kept telling me to check out this one band, she saw at a festival. Time and time again she reminded me to give them a chance. And time and time again I felt uncomfortable hearing the name of the band; Crystal Fighters.

Yes, Crystal Castles. Um I meant Fighters.

Why the hell do I hear of a band, whose name is half the same as the band which I've just learn to consider sacred?! But why the hell do I consider myself to be open to new music, but resent a band just by its name?

You little hipster hater hypocrite, change that thinking of yours quickly now.

Luckily cleaning my room always takes many hours, so there was time to have a few albums playing in the background. Now and then it might happen that one album gets on repeat. The now and then moment was then.

Seriously I don't think there's another band in the world, which can combine all the genres I love into one. Well ok, it's not right to say it that way, since I listen to all kinds of bands from Abba to Slipknot. But what I meant is that when listening to Crystal Fighter's debut album Star of Love, I heard everything from drum n' base to pop and electro to rock. I'm not going to use the word indie now, just to avoid the 'indie is not a genre' people's mumble.

They even make their vibe of Spanish music and instruments, which I'm not a huge fan of, sound delicious with everything else. But let's have a look now at the short version of my Crystal Fighters/Star of Love listening debut:

1. Hm I didn't expect them to play this type of music.
2. Oh maan this is one of those songs you can not only sing by yourself, but also with a huge crowd!
3. WTF was this the album or did I have a random playlist on?

Then comes the Wikipedia part put into my own words:

Crystal Fighters are a British electronic band with Spanish influences. One of the band members found an unfinished opera script from her reclusive grandfather's house. That's where the band got its name and were heavily inspired by the wild and deranged spirit of the writings.

Themes in the album include 'the unfathomable mystery of the universe, the turbulent journey towards being at peace with death, the triumph of love, and the omnipotence of the sun'. Star Of Love is actually a backronym for SOL, the Spanish word for 'sun'.

When you've researched enough of the band, you look for gigs anywhere near you. If you're lucky enough to find one, you ask your friend to buy you a ticket, since you still don't have a credit card.

Then you do the latter of number 2 of my listening debut thoughts listed earlier.

It's maybe easier to understand those thoughts by checking out these videos.







Half a year later you find yourself writing about them and still wondering how was the name Crystal Fighters able to disturb you so much that you almost missed out on a gem. And how the band member on the right in the picture reminds you of a Harry Potter villain.

Champion Sound

12.10.2011

Rememeber when I mentioned that I get to do something really awesome a couple of weeks ago? No? Okey well anyways, now I have time, energy and permission to write about it. One of my favorite bands at the moment, Crystal Fighters, posted on their Facebook that they're looking for boys and girls in London for their next video. This is the positive side of having to have Facebook on at work. The negative side of course is that it easily distracts you, especially if these kind of updates come up.

Being siked of having the chance to finally be in a music video, but not hearing from the production company, until a day before the shooting started, when I called them was really stressful. Apparently some emails had slipped through, but luckily they managed to still get us in. Thank you Saloon Films for that!

Me and Linda went for the second shooting day, and had to wake up at 5.30! I don't remember when was the last time I had to get up so early. They were filming in some kind of warehouse type of cold, moldy building, which didn't matter until we had to dress up in slippers and short-sleeved shirts or no shirts at all and so on. I was lucky enough to keep my trousers on!

It wasn't until 5h later, when all of us had our hair and make-up done and clothes changed that action called. This is more or less the brief for the first scene we did: "You've been raving for 15 days now, and it has to be sensual and dreamy as you walk across the hall".

                                   raving for 15 days                                         or not!

the fantastic luke treadaway

and the beautiful georgina bevan

The second scene we did was us in a half circle watching the band play and being all mesmerized (or stoned). Kind of a pity that I concentrated so much in posing (which the camera didn't even film), than actually enjoying that the band was in a way "playing a private gig" for us.

Then the fun part started.

photos by l.lundberg (excl. pics where she herself is)

It's quite cool that one of the Crystal Fighters' girls used to be at The Animal Farm too. Such a small world. And the band told us so many things that isn't on Wikipedia. Haha.

But hey enough of me writing, here's the actual video, which was released last Monday.



Linda says: "Jaleh you're the second last person to be seen in the video!", haha that's true and so cool! That's by far one of the best experiences I've had. And Linda's become a fan of the band now. And actually Champion Sound had never been my favorite tracks on the album, but that's changed, since I noticed that the lyrics are so beautiful!

When you find that love inside of me. Deep within the heart of me.