POW RECORDINGS
Envision the underwater levels of Super Mario 64 as directed by David Lynch. Or artificial schools of neon dollar store fish swimming through the ruins of Atlantis. Or Phillip Glass for the microplastic generation. Enter Crystal Sting.
The duo of Toronto producers Kurtis Perrie (@kurtisperrie) and Bjorn Kriel (@bjorn.mp3), encompass all these phenomena, and that’s only scratching the surface. Their mesmerizing POW Recordings debut “Bubblegum Aquarium” is an electro-acoustic soundtrack for exploration of the psychic deep seas. A whimsical, buoyant, and bright jetstream ride atop strange currents.
Perrie and Kriel met as kids crate digging at the local record store in their hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, but didn’t cross paths again until less than three years ago, shortly after beginning college. The synergy was instant, and they began contributing to one another’s solo albums, works which attracted co-signs from Four Tet and Apple Music.
In 2023, a recording session with other young virtuosos in Toronto’s jazz scene allowed them to understand how best to manipulate their improvisations into startling new forms. That process soon evolved into a proper full-length, in which Perrie used modular synths to transmogrify Kriel’s acoustic instruments. The result is the tropically phosphorescent Bubblegum Aquarium.
Their music is playful yet rigorous, reflecting their unique backgrounds. Perrie is a member of Toronto’s Number 9 Audio Group and studies electronics at university. His hardware insight inspired the album’s esoteric samples and innovative sonic eccentricities (the short circuiting bass on “Suburban Atomizer” comes from a refrigerator hum). Kriel is a multi-instrumentalist used to performing everything himself, and pulls inspirations from any material at hand. In BC and Toronto, he amassed regional notoriety for ripping vibraphone solos over J Dilla beats, and borrowed his neighbor’s steel drum to make the ecstatic “Splash Party” – something like a Jamie xx edit funnelled through a snowglobe. On lead single “HD Umbrella”, the two commit arson to an ambient jam that grooves like Caribou, but casts an orphic spell akin to Bjork.
Bubblegum Aquarium was recorded last summer in just five sessions split between Perrie’s basement and Kriel’s attic. It was cut live in real-time on two stereo tracks. The name comes from a vape flavor; the music is a breath of clean oxygen for cold lungs, warm, weird vibrations in a synthetically impure landscape. Highly recommended for fans of Autechre and Brian Eno, especially those searching for unexplored frequencies 10,000 feet below sea level. Take the plunge.
How We Met and Formed Crystal Sting:
We first met as kids at a record store in our hometown, Kelowna, BC, but we didn’t become friends or start making music together until 2022. Before forming Crystal Sting, we had already collaborated on several songs, both individually and with other artists. We also contributed to each other’s most recent albums outside of this project, with Bjorn playing guitar on Kurtis’s song Work Tape, and Kurtis with additional production on Bjorn’s The Eternal Drip album.
Improvisation and indeterminacy have always been at the heart of our musical connection, and we formed Crystal Sting to hone in on that. Since meeting in 2022, we’ve jammed a lot and played a few shows together in various configurations, for example Kurtis on drums and synthesizers and Bjorn on electric guitar.
In 2023, we organized a recording session with a group of Toronto jazz musicians, capturing a series of improvised pieces while using advanced studio techniques to manipulate and enhance their instruments’ sounds. This process, which we called Synchrony Experiments, inspired the creative direction of Crystal Sting.
After two years of intermittent collaboration, we landed on a system that felt most natural: Bjorn on vibraphone and piano, and Kurtis using modular synthesizers to transform the acoustic sounds in real-time. After a few jam sessions with this setup, we decided to turn it into a full-fledged project. So far, Crystal Sting’s live shows have been fully improvised electro-acoustic performances, subtly referencing our original songs and reinterpreting well-known tracks in unexpected ways.
Kurtis Conant
Kurtis Perrie Conant is an emerging Toronto-based sound artist, currently studying Electronic Engineering Technology at Seneca Polytechnic. Interested in merging different styles of electronic and acoustic music, Kurtis uses a combination of experimental digital and analogue techniques in his work. In 2020, Kurtis joined Toronto’s Number 9 Audio Group, initially as an audio engineer and later as Studio Manager. During this period, he released a record titled
Work, which gained recognition on Four Tet’s Spotify playlist and was featured in advertisements for Apple, Hunter Boots, and Holt Renfrew. Unfortunately, the studio closed in December 2022 due to a fire. Following this setback, Kurtis shifted his focus to audio product development and music technology. His studies in electronics moves him towards his goals of innovating in music and technology, drawing inspiration from his personal music practice.
Bjorn Kriel
Bjorn Kriel is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter based out of Toronto, Canada. He distills inspiration from a vast appreciation of musical genres and human experiences to create songs that are present and earnest. Some evenings, you may run into him performing hard-hitting and heartfelt indie rock music on a bass or a guitar. Other nights, you may hear him playing tender acoustic trio jazz on the piano, or ripping vibraphone solos over live Dilla beats in hip-hop fusion ensembles. Bjorn enjoys collaborating with artists of all genres, and has contributed his playing to a number of albums. Notably, he is the vibraphonist in Toronto jazz fusion quartet Diskarte, and half of electro-acoustic duo Crystal Sting. In 2024, Bjorn released his debut album The Eternal Drip; a genre-bending meditation on loss and artistic process that features Bjorn on nearly every instrument. No matter the context, Bjorn is a bold voice, an attentive listener, and a hard-working collaborator who is passionate about creating authentic original music. – Gonna release another record this year too, it’s nearly finished!
About the Music:
On Bubblegum Aquarium, we built songs from improvisations, much like our live performances. Bjorn plays acoustic instruments, while Kurtis processes their sound through a series of modular synthesizers, creating a dynamic and reactive sonic environment. The result is conversational, playful, sometimes ambient, and sometimes heavy. The album was recorded during June/ July 2024 in about two weeks over five consecutive sessions, split between Kurtis’s basement studio and Bjorn’s attic studio. We began with lengthy improvisations, gradually cutting them down to create structured pieces. Most tracks, apart from vocals and some layered drum sounds, were recorded live in real-time on two stereo tracks. We came up with the artistic direction and the name of the record simply from hanging out and listening back to the material. There is a sort of dark, languid, flowing quality to the music, paired with these shimmering, metallic, bright, almost unnatural sounding synths that gave us the feeling of constructed aquatic environments. We felt inspired by the image of like, dollar store toy fishes hanging out in these dark and moody aquariums. Felt only right that we would do an underwater photoshoot for the album.
Core Lore:
Artists that Inspire Us:
Fennesz, The Books, Autechre, Four Tet, Jon Hassell, Cornelius, Underworld, Brian Eno, Caribou, Darkside, N Kramer.
Crystal Sting
Toronto, Canada
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