Bleep II.

My new favourite band, the enigmatic Basque peasant farmers/avant garde synth lords, Crystal Fighters.
Crystal Fighters I Love London [Instrumental] zsh

Vintage Simian Mobile Disco. This was the first track I could find of SMD after seeing them in Fabric killing room 2 back in the day. Its an early Kitsune release from 2005.
Simian Mobile Disco The Count zsh

1980s electroid rhythms from the illustrious Chirs & Cosey.
Chris & Cosey This Is Me zsh

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crystal fighters interview
After hearing their music and getting slightly obsessed I wanted to find out more about the Crystal Fighters. Recently I was lucky enough to catch up with them before their gig at 12 Aklam Rd to get an interview.

SK Hi Crystal Fighters, it's been a bit tricky finding anything out about you online. Can you introduce yourselves, and explain how you came to form the band?

CF Hello, we are Crystal Fighters. I am Agostes and this is Tello and Elazar and this is Mimi. Me and Elazar know each other because our fathers grew up in the Basque Country together and his dad taught us both to play guitar when we were ten and we played together a lot. We know Mimi because she was my brother's girlfriend and she would write songs. We met Tello last year at my grandfather's funeral as he is the son of one of my dad's distant cousins and he was living in London and wanted to pay respect to his relatives, and this is when the band was started.

SK Wow that's pretty heavy stuff. So what happened from there?

CF At the wake me and Elazar were talking about this book of songs and poems in Basque and English my grandfather had written and given to me. Before he died he told me he had always wanted someone close to him to sing some of his words to the world with the force with which they were written. He wanted someone to entertain him and play the crazed and tragic warrior he liked to think himself to be, and when he saw I could do this, that I was doing this anyway, he gave the book to me. I could talk all day about this amazing man, but anyway, it is his spirit that we try to carry through into our music.

SK Overwhelming! So how would you describe your overall sound?

CF You know, we are trying to make stuff that is rhythmically and melodically like the Basque music we grew up with, but faster and heavier. Some of the Basque dances have been played on the same basic instruments for hundreds of years and yet in their simplicity there is the energy to make you dance all night. So we take these sounds and then add a huge sub bass, and my grandfather's crazy prophecies, and this is what Crystal Fighters sounds like. Fast, heavy, folk-influenced dance music with Basque instruments.

SK What can we expect from your live show tonight?

CF Our show is an opera of sorts; people die, people break down, people fall in love, people are violent to the bone. We are not really a band; we play live to draw people into our story as it develops. We all feel an enormous presence come over us when we make and play this music. We all used to make all different types or music, but now we only make this, because all the other stuff seems pointless now.


The show did turn out to be an opera. A real punch in the face kind of opera. Energy so big that it felt like an enormous presence had over come the crowd as well as the band. Check out their myspace and get to a gig near you.