High praise indeed - Ed Reyes & his bird

THE DEVIL WILL NEVER TAKE OUR SOULS AWAY . . .

The summer is creeping around the corner and we have been eager to come out and play.  This has been the first time in years that we have spent an extended period at home in Silver Lake and San Diego.  Lee and Ian have been surfing a lot and Brian and I have been exploring our dear city of Los Angeles.  Even though we were born and raised here in Los Angeles there is so much to discover and so much inspiration out there.  You tend to forget these things when you travel a lot.  There is a saying that the ‘grass is always greener on the other side’.  You know what?  Sometimes it is but you can’t beat the vibe and the weather here in Southern California.

We played a festival in Santa Monica called Revel With A Cause last Saturday.  It was basically a celebration of all things green and being ecologically mindful.  They even had valet parking for bicycles.  Now that is very LA!  Our show was great and there was a mosh pit full of kids and toddlers dancing to our songs.  Maybe the Little Ones are kid-tested and mother-approved?  It was good to see kids jump up and down to Lovers Who Uncover.  Not a bad demographic.  I think this will be one of our last live appearances for a while.

We are going to concentrate on writing, recording, and rehearsing  in our studio.  I have to say it feels good to finally be off the road and fully concentrate on creating new material.  As we look for inspiration we quickly realize that inspiration is all around us.  It’s outside our window and it’s on the street.  It’s in our conversations with each other.  You see, music will always be the music of life.  It’s the soundtrack for your feet and it’s a soundtrack for you and me.  Even though the world has turned to doom and gloom we will never subscribe to that sentiment.  The Little Ones have always been about escaping that.  I think that’s why we decided to play music in the first place.  Hopefully people will still want to hear what we will create in the next upcoming months.  I want to leave you with a video we did set to Heron’s ‘The Devil’…

And the devil will never take my soul away,  but leave me on my own to sing my song alone…

Here’s a video you can embed from us.

xthelittleonesx

www.myspace.com/wearethelittleones

& here’s one of my favourite tracks from the Morning Tide debut album  ‘Gregory’s Chant’.  It’s the UK version mixed by James Ford

The Little Ones – Gregory’s Chant

and here’s the classic Crystal Castles remix of ‘Lovers Who Uncover’  a track off the ‘Sing Song’ ep.  A fine fine piece of remixing!

The Little Ones v Crystal Castles – Lovers Who Uncover

When I get the chance I’ll dig out all the Little Ones remixes & put together a download bundle from this site, there’s some bonkers boombox sidestepping takes on the Little Ones from the poppers poppin X-press2 disco dub to the wonderful blissed out Electrelane mix – I will keep you posted

LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT

Crystal Castles new single ‘Courtship Dating’ is just one of those infectious dance tracks that creeps into your brain and never leaves you. Probably one of the most powerful and memorable tracks heard in 2008.

Crystal Castles is an electronic music duo from Toronto, Ontario. The band consists of multi-instrumentalist Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass. Their music is easily recognized by their heavy use of samples, two-dimensional Gameboy glitches, electronic drums and distorted female vocals.Crystal Castles are known not only for their studio work, but also for their chaotic live shows . In May 2008, Crystal Castles headlined the UK’s NME New Noise tour along with Friendly Fires and White Lies.

Ethan Kath has also done remixes for a number of groups. Check out for example Crystal Castles’ versions of The Little Ones’  ‘Lovers Who Uncover’ or Health’s ‘Crimewave’.

The Little Ones es una banda californiana que una vez, a principios de 2007, publicó un bonito EP llamado Sing Song con una efectivísima carta de presentación llamada ‘Lovers Who Uncover’. El invierno pasado, los pequeñitos publicaron Terry Tales & Fallen Gates, otro EP de seis canciones cuando todo el mundo esperaba un disco de doce-canciones-como-dios-manda. Pues vaya, casi sin avisar, a las pocas semanas se filtró Morning Tide, 41 minutos de pop guitarrero (sin pasarse), con lo que se calmaron mis los ánimos. ¿A qué viene todo esto? Pues que ayer me enteré que los tendremos a La [2] de Barcelona el 12 de setiembre, lo que es una buena noticia, y que el esperado Morning Tide no se publicó hasta antes de ayer sólo en el Reino Unido. Estas filtraciones tan prematuras cada día me sorprenden más… Después del salto tienen un par de canciones.

The Little Ones – ‘Lovers Who Uncover’

The Little Ones – ‘Ordinary Song’

The Little Ones – Lovers Who Uncover

If you like you’re indie pop all the way up to wee, this may be just the sugar rush you need to start your week. It may be a thin line between delightfully uplifting and brash, saccharine pop, but having been generally adored for the two years it has been floating around, ‘Lovers Who Uncover’ has proved to be more than enough reason to get people excited about their recently released EP, Terry Tales & Fallen Gates.

MySpace

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Photo by RRRDIAZ

“A terrible accident, but compellingly beautiful, like a nun-packed bus crashing headlong into a truck full of scalpels made of gold.”

Ok…I think the only way to describe Crystal Castles is to imagine that you are back in the 80’s( yes, I know many are trying to forget) and computers are alive and have been programmed to make dance music, full of rising/falling 8-bit synth lines. An unconventional analogy, yes, but it should prepare you for this video.

While some may be turned off by that sound, I find it spontaneous, innovative and full of energy like your computer may explode, though a bit “out there” I agree. Their remixes are more accessible, if you don’t like their original stuff.

MP3| Lovers Who Uncover(Crystal Castles Remix) -The Little Ones – This may make you LOVE Crystal Castles…be careful.

MP3| Trash the Rental (Crystal Castles Remix) – Soho Doll

Myspace – stream some original stuff here – Listen to “Alice Practice” it has an interesting story about the band.

But how are they live?

-Erick

So they weren’t actually suppose to be a band?

“We’re not meant to be a band,” they say. “We were merely messing about with sounds and we put the results on the internet for some friends to download. Somehow a few labels heard the songs and wanted to release them. Crystal Castles is an accident. ‘Alice Practice’ is Alice practicing. She didn’t know I was recording.” A terrible accident, but compellingly beautiful, like a nun-packed bus crashing headlong into a truck full of scalpels made of gold.” -via Plan B Magazine interview.