We first caught up with local wunderkinds
Twin Crystals at the
Rock and Roll is Good for Kids
benefit show earlier in the year, and to paraphrase a review I wrote
afterwards “the heat of the crowd combined with the dual-synth,
brain-melting static hum makes you feel like you’re trapped inside the
world’s biggest hairdryer.” It goes without saying that we were totally
impressed right out of the gate. Over the last couple of years, Twin
Crystals have earned themselves no small amount of praise from fans and
media alike, and for good reason. The band continues to record and
release material at an astonishing rate, all the while continuing to
play regular shows around the local venue circuit. Recently
The Aural Kinetic was lucky enough to pull the coat of vocalist/keyboardist Jesse Taylor from the band, so let’s get the this show on the road!
The Aural Kinetic: We here at The Aural Kinetic pride
ourselves on doing our homework, but we just couldn’t find much
information on the early days of the band. When did you first assemble?
(Our best guess is sometime in 2006.) And why? Where did each of you
come from musically, and what was it about the collaboration between
the three of you that just clicked? What were your first shows like,
and how is that different than now?
Jesse Taylor: we first started in name in 2006 and
assembled some ideas of philip glass style drones over afrobeat rhythms
with chanting. only our first two performances were like that. our
first show featured kayla guthrie from fuck me usa
on chants and me on gtr percussion with jordan playing drums. our
second performance was on citr and it was only me and jordan // we took
too many drugs and if you listen to the performance where you can hear
my mind fall apart / during a free form poetry rant.
caroline d. from vapid started on synth for our third show and we
played with her for about 6 months / went on a short nw usa tour and
was really successful, we made a cassette called hate sex for that tour
just featuring practice jams and bedroom synths.
TAK: Unlike a lot of contemporary bands in Vancouver, Twin
Crystals tend to release a lot more material than other bands. Is this
mostly a matter of keeping your fans in the loop?
JT: nah its more because its fun
TAK Or does the band have a special affinity with being in the recording studio?
JT: jordan actually helps run a fabulous studio in
east van called fadermaster and i have a lofi basement studio on
hastings street, so we are recording all the time
TAK: As well, a quick scan down your release-list shows that
you tend to record in a multitude of formats (CD-R, records and even
cassettes). Does your band have a preference with media through which
your music is released? Or is it simply a matter of getting it out by
any means available?
JT: i personally enjoy hand made stuff, and i love
cassettes and vinyl. we have access to a home lathe cutter and we can
make a few copies of this or that.
TAK: While a lot of bands tend to shy away from releasing
live and demo recordings, Twin Crystals seems to embrace the rough and
the unexpected. What can you tell us about these recordings, and what
do these recordings have that your more studio-oriented releases lack?
JT: well everything we have ever recorded and
released is initially a demo, we record everything ourselves in our
nite prison studio, we just never have any money to go into a real
studio // the only exception to this is our separate / birth ep that
came out on summer lovers unlimited in canada on vinyl and cdep in
australia on exo, we went to see our friend shawn cole who runs
fadermaster studio in vancouver. our lp that came out a fwe months ago
is actually an entire album of demos that the label deemed album ready.
so we jsut put it out.
TAK: As in any city with five-or-more prolific bands,
Vancouver is very much considered “a scene”, and a thriving one at
that. As a result, Twin Crystals has appeared on countless bills and
split-7” recordings with other like-minded bands from the city. What do
these collaborations do for you as a band? Would you say that the
explosion of local creativity has been nurtured through these
associations and relationships?
JT: totally, cause we all get together and
photocopy / cut / paste / silkscreen and do everything ourselves but
together as a community
TAK: While I would consider the bulk of your music to be
accessible to everyone, many of your songs veer sharply into, well, not
noise-core, but a dark-edged experimental mayhem nonetheless. How would
you define your own sound? Who is the music for? And how would you
explain what you’re doing to those who don’t particularly get it?
JT: well we just enjoy creating and whatever comes
out comes out. our new record a split lp w/ modern creatures is leaning
more towards our live sound which can be chaotic and dissonant but with
a melody thats in there somewhere. we wanna get away from the
synthesizers and focus more on gtrs.
TAK: Considering the amount of time you’ve spent on the road,
would you consider yourselves a “touring band”? Do you have that
wanderlust – that compulsion – that makes you get up and go? Are there
any places you’d like to take your music that you haven’t yet?
JT: yeah we are totally a touring band, last year
we toured 3 times and so far this year we went across the usa for the
first time. touring is amazing, we usually have a really really good
time experiencing new places. vancouver is only just starting to catch
on to us. our records do really well in japan and we need to go there,
but we ha ve zero start up money, and labels are afraid of us. so
everything we do is funded ourselves. we paid for the new lp with money
we earned on tour. and that felt really good. we book all the tours
ourselves through myspace
TAK: Many of your site updates and journal entries are
written using a flow-of-consciousness poetic form. Is the poetry an
extension of the music? And what can the two convey that regular prose
and everyday talk fail to express?
JT: funny you are the first to comment on my
poetry/prose. lyrics are very important to me. when i write songs the
lyrics come out in the form of stream of conscious. i make poetry books
for tours and really try to capture a certain essence, what it is i am
trying to do is still do be figured out. i grew up reading burroughs
and patti smith, and find their words to be EXCITING and new, tapping
into that frame of conscious is hard but when the words are coming out
its really exciting to hear what comes out of you. things that i would
never speak of or talk about with firends come out in waves when
performing improv / stream lyrics. its really fun. usually quite dark
words though.
one more thing about the stream of conscious poetry. we like mystery, we wanna promote thought. most of the lyrics are riddles
TAK: Earlier in the year you played the ‘Rock and Roll is
Good for Kids’ benefit show at The Astoria. How important is this type
of social advocacy for Twin Crystals? Are there any other causes that
the band supports that you’d like to mention?
JT: well this is a bit of a hard one cause our
understanding of what that show was meant for and what we found out
while being interviewed for it were two completely different things, we
were caught off guard by the questions and i asked to not be
interivewed for lack of understanding.
TAK: What’s next for the band for the second half of 2009?
JT: writing more and more, i have a second poetry
book coming out. were going to go into a studio to record a new lp. no
more tours until early next year. i have a new solo lp coming out next
month on NMR records.
Band photograph courtesy of
Steve Louie. To say that Steve’s photo documentation of the local scene is prolific would be a massive understatement.