Though their tracks now ghost behind the beats of your favorite hip-hop deities—Yeat, Destroy Lonely, Lil Peep, Nettspend—Crystal Castles approaches sampling with a stranger touch: one that conjures questions of where, why, and how they discovered these sounds.
*From vintage PC software to Victorian-era operas to the world’s first semblances of video games, we’ve compiled some of our favorite flips by the now-defunct Canadian electronic duo.*

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#1: Celestica (2010) -

Sample used: The Secret Beyond Matter - documentary adaption of a Turkish cult leader’s book on creationist-meets-materialist philosophical beliefs

Behind the softly beautiful, dreamy, and fog-like pads of Crystal Castles’ “Celestica” lies a darker truth. The competition for the most interesting contextual piece to the song is fierce; the duo recorded the album in haunting places—an Icelandic church, Detroit garage, a Canadian cabin—and cites the fatalistic suicide of a worker who jumped into a vat of hot plastic at a manufacturing factory in Canada (run by namesake, Celestica Inc.), and was subsequently rumored to be embedded in future products. However, it is the pad sample I find to be most jarring and sinister.

Only available digitally on YouTube and physically from a Muslim spiritual literature bookstore in northern California, the Secret Beyond Matter is the documentary where the iconic “Celestica” pads originate from, and theorizes the universe and all matter is solely the sum of all human perception. It posits that, because we have to rely on human senses to interact with the world, the world may not be what we perceive it to be. The documentary even opens with a warning that viewers’ outlooks on the material world will be fundamentally changed. At first glance, the film feels compelling with an appeal towards stoners and hallucinogen enthusiasts who gravitate towards getting “mindfucked”. However, its plausability dwindles deeper into the movie, extrapolating “science” to make wild conclusions, and when you delve into the little available information on the film. Especially, when you consider the film is based on a book, Timelessness and the Reality of Fate, written by Turkish cult leader and Muslim televangelist, Adnan Oktar. In 2022, the author has been convicted to 8,658 years in prison for crimes including fraud, gang activity, sexual abuse, and political espionage.

You can make your own conclusions on the documentary here, but among its only certainties is laying the foundations for one of my favorite Crystal Castles songs… so that is one thing I can appreciate.

#2: Untrust Us (2008) -

Sample used: “Dead Womb” by Death from Above 1979 (2002) & Microsoft Talk It! - a Windows 95 text-to-speech program included with Microsoft Plus! for Kids

As the opener for their first-ever, self-titled album Crystal Castles, “Untrust Us” sets up the creepy, lo-fi, backroom-esque tone that the duo is mostly known for. Laying over a beat replete with analog synth loop, video game glitches, and a sound reminiscent of crow caws, the vocals are the song’s standout: disembodied, deeply chilling, and seemingly in gibberish. The sample is taken from the Spanish intro of dance-punk band Death from Above 1979’s “Dead Womb,” and is not in gibberish; rather, it is the forefront of the song’s message about refusing offers of cocaine in clubs. Yes, cocaine is not good for you.

“Dead Womb” was released in 2002 but its Spanish vocal sample predates the songs by 7 years, pulled from Microsoft Talk It!: a Windows 95 text-to-speech program included with Microsoft Plus! for Kids. The rudimentary software provides a relatively impressive amount of options for the speech it creates ranging from personality (kinda creepy, not gonna lie) to vocal exertion effort. Feel free to play with an emulator of the program yourself and create your own sample here.

#3: Knights (2008) -

Sample used: Edi, Ethan Kath’s baby niece’s cries

Taken from the cries of his baby niece, Edi, the vocals in “Knights” hit just the right note intervals to imbed themselves in both my ears and mind for extended periods of times. I vividly recall playing the chorus on repeat, going as far as memorizing the exact timestamp where there is just enough buildup for the vocal line to drop harder (between 0:29 and 0:30 if you’re interested…), and is easily my favorite piece of the frantic and digitally rebellious track. Pictured in the video above, Kath released this photo of the face behind the voice on his Facebook account in 2015. This sample was also used in one of the duo’s earlier unreleased songs, “Knife Fight” (click here). So, effectively, “Knights” is a sample of a sample. Rumor has it, Kath selected the sample for its resemblance of the words “angel die” when slowed and pitched down.

#4: She Fell Out (unreleased, 2010) -

Sample used: “She Fall Off” by You Peghead You (1981)

“She Fell Out” is a rare case of sampling working against the electronic duo; their inability to find the copyright owners of the vocal sample forced them to leave it out of the Crystal Castles (I) album of which it was intended for. Impressively, the original sample was tracked down on the r/crystalcastles subreddit 9 years later. However, this has ironically led to more questions, as the 1981 Australian avant-garde punk band responsible for the song’s raw and abrasive vocals only performed live a single time and its only remaining copy is from a recording by someone who was at that show (a belated thank you to Phil, whose blog you can find here); how did CC find the sample nearly a decade before without access to Phil’s recording and where did You Peghead You go? The original reddit thread’s comments (here) illustrates that these questions may only ever be a wildgoose chase. To sum it up, the song had been posted by a now-defunct 2007 music blog called “Bumrocks,” who got their copy from an Australian Post-Punk Archives #5 post from 2005, who—based on the 34 year gap—is definitely sourcing the song from elsewhere, and so on…

#5: Courtship Dating (2008)

Sample used: “COURTSHIP” by HEALTH (2007)

American industrial, noise-rock band HEALTH is one of Crystal Castles’ most frequent collaborators, releasing a series of “Crystal Castles VS. HEALTH” vinyl records together and credited for songwriting or, sometimes, officially listed as “backing scream” credit on multiple tracks from Crystal Castles (I). Though “Courtship Dating” is already a chaotic and impassioned song, its predecessor Health’s “COURTSHIP” takes this to an extreme. To say, there are conventional vocals would be misleading: instead, they truly are just backing screams. Crash cymbal-dominant drum patterns are irregular and sparse, often following the screams rather than dictating them. And while officially considered a song, “COURTSHIP” is similarly unconventional to baby cries and talk-to-speech programming: feeling more akin to a ritualistically intense, raw, and anti-structured sonic interlude.

#6: Insulin (2012)

Sample used: La traviata, Act I: Prelude - Giuseppe Verdi (1853)

Written within the prosperous heights of Victorian times, Giuseppe Verdi’s La Trivata is a 1853 opera set in Paris that recounts the tragic, forbidden love story between a prostitute and nobleman, ending with the grandiose drama of the courtesan dying in a lover’s arms. The tragedy’s opening act and prelude features a delicate, tense, and gradual orchestral buildup of emotional intensity, from which Crystal Castles takes its opening seconds’ progression: brightening its sound, adding some light detuning effects, and digi-fying it. The unlikely sample reminds us of classical music’s everlasting impact even on some of the most generationally-removed genres of music.

#7: Violent Dreams (2010)

Sample used: Memories of a Color by Stina Nordenstam (1991)

Crystal Castles continues their international sample run, unbounded by international borders, with their flip of Stina Nordenstam’s “Memories of a Color.” The title track of Nordenstam’s debut album is similarly unrestricted, albeit with genre: avant-pop with an inclusion of elements from jazz, folk, and ambient pop. While its use in “Violent Dreams” sees the original vocals becoming distant and obscured by its heavy processing, Nordenstam’s voice retains much of its fragility and wisp—unlike the song title suggests, and fitting for the electronic duo’s second album (and my personal favorite) veer towards a more dreamlike and physically grander atmosphere.

#8: Year of Silence (2010)

Sample used: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur by Sigur Rós (2008)

In spite of its 2008 release, “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur” by Sigur Rós—an Icelandic post-rock band—is featured in Crystal Castles’ “Year of Silence.” While its feel-good nature and major key resemble a theme to the credit sequence of some coming-of-age fairytale ending circa the song’s release date, the song’s video performances suggest something time-ambiguous; keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson sports a handlebar mustache; a brass-woodwind-string ensemble is in support; and every piece of the performance is dressed in clothes that evokes a fusion of flapper-era fashion and Nordic traditional clothing. “Year of Silence” takes that serotonin-filled feeling and, effectively, disembodies it: heavily manipulating its vocals to be in a minor key, alien-like, mystical, and mechanical.

The Hidden Voices Behind Crystal Castles