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Crystal Fighters
Crystal Fighters are an English-American electronic music band formed in London in 2007. Their debut album, Star of Love, was released in October 2010 in the UK and was released in the US through Atlantic Records in April 2012. Their second album, Cave Rave, was released in May 2013 and their third, Everything Is My Family was released in October 2016. Their fourth album titled Gaia & Friends was released in March 2019. Their most recent album, LIGHT+, was released in November 2023.
Crystal Fighters consists of Sebastian Pringle (lead vocals, guitar), Gilbert Vierich (electronics, guitars, txalaparta, percussion), Graham Dickson (guitar/txalaparta), Laure Stockley (vocals) and Mimi Borrelli (vocals).
Pringle, Vierich, and Dickson began making music under various guises before being joined by Laure Stockley and Mimi Borelli. The band added Andrea Marongiu as their drummer in September 2010.
The group took their name Crystal Fighters from an unfinished opera which Stockley's grandfather had penned during his final months of insanity. Stockley came across the manuscript while clearing out the reclusive old man's remote home in the Basque countryside. She became obsessed by the intriguing scrawls within it and shared it with the others. Captivated by its seemingly prophetic contents, the band took on the name and formed in an attempt to expand upon the wild and deranged spirit of Stockley's grandfather's writings. "We started writing music around the book and learning about Basque culture and how the music and history has evolved. From there we decided we wanted to finish the opera and do a live show that would get across some of the amazing, crazy... stuff that was in this book. So we crafted this live show around the book and wrote new music based on its directions and looking at Basque music as a whole." explains Vierich.
Describing their style as "fast, mesmeric and passionate", the band play both electric and acoustic guitars, which adds much timbre, synths, drums, and incorporate traditional Basque instruments into their music. Many of their songs use a txalaparta, a wooden xylophone-like percussion instrument played by two people standing face-to-face. They also use the danbolin (a rope-tuned snare drum), and the txistu (a Basque pipe whistle).
Crystal Fighters' style is a fusion of genres – fast progressive dance music joined by the melodies and dances of traditional Basque folk, alongside synthesisers, bass-driven wonk-funk, with beats fuelled by early 1980s Spanish punk and experimental electronica from bands such as Aviador Dro, Las Vulpes and Dulce Venganza. Basque music informs much of their songwriting: the riff on "Champion Sound" is lifted from the Basque folk piece "Sagar Dantza" and "In The Summer" draws upon music heard at the Carnival of Lantz in Navarra. Paul Lester of The Guardian has described their style as "what would happen if you went back 100 years, dropped a load of recording equipment into a remote Basque village and left the villagers, steeped in folk music, to their own devices."
A melting pot of cultural, musical and stylistic influences, Crystal Fighters use eclectic reference points to create their unique genre of music, stating "we consider ourselves to be a mixture of folk, electro, punk, techno, dubstep and Spanish pop. We are kind of like the sound that would be created if The Velvet Underground and The Gipsy Kings were to travel back in time to the Pyrenees, 1980, and make a record with Skream, Madlib and Luciano on production."
Their unique style has caused NME to comment that "Crystal Fighters have stood out as one of the most interesting prospects by a mile – something genuinely new sounding." while Virgin Music describe the band's output as suitable for "the trans-continental, scene-crossing, cultural explorer".
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Crystal Fighters
Crystal Fighters are an English-American electronic music band formed in London in 2007. Their debut album, Star of Love, was released in October 2010 in the UK and was released in the US through Atlantic Records in April 2012. Their second album, Cave Rave, was released in May 2013 and their third, Everything Is My Family was released in October 2016. Their fourth album titled Gaia & Friends was released in March 2019. Their most recent album, LIGHT+, was released in November 2023.
Crystal Fighters consists of Sebastian Pringle (lead vocals, guitar), Gilbert Vierich (electronics, guitars, txalaparta, percussion), Graham Dickson (guitar/txalaparta), Laure Stockley (vocals) and Mimi Borrelli (vocals).
Pringle, Vierich, and Dickson began making music under various guises before being joined by Laure Stockley and Mimi Borelli. The band added Andrea Marongiu as their drummer in September 2010.
The group took their name Crystal Fighters from an unfinished opera which Stockley's grandfather had penned during his final months of insanity. Stockley came across the manuscript while clearing out the reclusive old man's remote home in the Basque countryside. She became obsessed by the intriguing scrawls within it and shared it with the others. Captivated by its seemingly prophetic contents, the band took on the name and formed in an attempt to expand upon the wild and deranged spirit of Stockley's grandfather's writings. "We started writing music around the book and learning about Basque culture and how the music and history has evolved. From there we decided we wanted to finish the opera and do a live show that would get across some of the amazing, crazy... stuff that was in this book. So we crafted this live show around the book and wrote new music based on its directions and looking at Basque music as a whole." explains Vierich.
Describing their style as "fast, mesmeric and passionate", the band play both electric and acoustic guitars, which adds much timbre, synths, drums, and incorporate traditional Basque instruments into their music. Many of their songs use a txalaparta, a wooden xylophone-like percussion instrument played by two people standing face-to-face. They also use the danbolin (a rope-tuned snare drum), and the txistu (a Basque pipe whistle).
Crystal Fighters' style is a fusion of genres – fast progressive dance music joined by the melodies and dances of traditional Basque folk, alongside synthesisers, bass-driven wonk-funk, with beats fuelled by early 1980s Spanish punk and experimental electronica from bands such as Aviador Dro, Las Vulpes and Dulce Venganza. Basque music informs much of their songwriting: the riff on "Champion Sound" is lifted from the Basque folk piece "Sagar Dantza" and "In The Summer" draws upon music heard at the Carnival of Lantz in Navarra. Paul Lester of The Guardian has described their style as "what would happen if you went back 100 years, dropped a load of recording equipment into a remote Basque village and left the villagers, steeped in folk music, to their own devices."
A melting pot of cultural, musical and stylistic influences, Crystal Fighters use eclectic reference points to create their unique genre of music, stating "we consider ourselves to be a mixture of folk, electro, punk, techno, dubstep and Spanish pop. We are kind of like the sound that would be created if The Velvet Underground and The Gipsy Kings were to travel back in time to the Pyrenees, 1980, and make a record with Skream, Madlib and Luciano on production."
Their unique style has caused NME to comment that "Crystal Fighters have stood out as one of the most interesting prospects by a mile – something genuinely new sounding." while Virgin Music describe the band's output as suitable for "the trans-continental, scene-crossing, cultural explorer".