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The Crystal Method

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The Crystal Method is an American electronic music duo consisting of Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland. Along the same lines as The Chemical Brothers, Propellerheads, The Prodigy, and Fatboy Slim, they specialize in breakbeat and big beat styles of music, but with more rock sensibilities than their contemporaries.

Contents

Biography

Although Jordan and Kirkland are both from Las Vegas, Nevada, the band was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1993. The Crystal Method did most of their earlier production work in an underground shelter lovingly referred to as "The Bomb Shelter" in the front yard of a rent house they once shared as roommates. Before production began on Legion of Boom in 2004, they moved the studio into the garage of the rented house; many people aren't aware of this, however, and still believe they work in the actual "bomb shelter", now a nickname for the studio setup.

The Crystal Method's music is broad in scope, and can be found in many modern shows and movies, including Bones, Blade II, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Lost in Space, Spawn, Zoolander, XXX, The Replacement Killers, and episodes of Dark Angel. The theme music of the NBC drama Third Watch was "Keep Hope Alive" from their Vegas album. Episode 13, Season 3 of the popular TV show Alias, featured "Starting Over" from Legion of Boom. The track "Name Of The Game" (from the Tweekend album) was also featured as intro music for the popular video game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, and has also been used as intro music for live performances by magician The Amazing Johnathan and even in Hummer advertisements. Their music was also featured extensively in the EA Sports video game FIFA '98: Road To World Cup, which included the tracks "Busy Child", "Keep Hope Alive", "More", and "Now Is The Time". The track "Busy Child" also featured in a 1998 British advertisement for The Gap which featured skateboarders. Their song "Busy Child" was featured in the video game Donkey Konga and "Born Too Slow" was included in both Donkey Konga 2 and '. Several songs from their first album also featured prominently in the game '. "The Winner" (from Tweekend) was featured in the video game FreQuency, and their remix of P.O.D.'s "Boom" was also featured in it's sequel, Amplitude.

The Crystal Method is also known to have remixed other artists' tracks, such as Linkin Park's track "Points Of Authority"; the remix was called "Pts.Of.Athrty (The Crystal Method Remix)" and can only be found on LP Underground 2.0 EP, which is exclusively available to LP Underground members. The group also collaborated with Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo in the making of a music video.

The list of equipment used to create it is also quite large, with the Clavia Nord Lead being the instrument most closely associated with their style and sound. It provides many of the grittier leads and buzzes in the music and was the primary source of sound for their first album Vegas.

After Vegas The Crystal Method had a noticeable change in their music style. Even if the classic harsh filtered sounds commonly associated with them are still present in new releases, they don't play such an dominant role as they did in Vegas. Many "followers" feel that The Crystal Method did a wrong turn with this new musical perspective and are hoping for a comeback with a more Vegas oriented style. Others again believe that The Crystal Method have evolved and thus moving away from the underground and becoming more accepted commercially.

In June of 2006, the duo has teamed up with Nike to release the workout-inspired album . The album is a continuous 45 minute mix of ten songs, and can only be downloaded from the iTunes Music Store.

Myths

A common misconception is that the name "The Crystal Method" is believed to originate from "Crystal Meth", a nickname for the drug methamphetamine, but in fact the name was first exclaimed by a rapper friend of theirs, who had heard about a dilemma Ken and Scott had as they both had a crush on a girl named Crystal, "Ah, the Crystal method" exclaimed the rapper, the name stuck. This Myth is furthered by the suggestive naming and sampling in many of the tracks, for example "Vapor Trail" which starts with the sound of someone lightning and smoking a pipe that sounds very similar to the sound of crystal meth being smoke.

Another common mistake made by casual listeners of electronic music is that duo was resposible for "The Matrix Theme", the song played in the film The Matrix when Morpheus and Neo were walking down the sidewalk in a Matrix simulation. This is not true, however, since The Crystal Method have done no music for any of the Matrix films. The song in question is actually Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan or Rob D.. However, one of their tracks ("Trip Like I Do") was used in several cinematic trailers which might have led to this mistake. A similar mistake is the "Blade Techno Opener" or "Blood Rave" track, played during the rave scene in the beginning of the movie Blade. This song is actually New Order's "Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix)".

Instrument list

Discography

Singles

Non-Album Tracks
"Now Is The Time"
"More" (from Plastic compilation volume 1)
From "Vegas"
"Keep Hope Alive"
"Busy Child"
"Comin' Back"
From "Spawn" soundtrack
"(Can't You) Trip Like I Do?" (a re-working of their song "Trip Like I Do" from "Vegas" featuring Filter)
From "Tweekend"
"Name of the Game"
"Murder" (also known as "You Know It's Hard" and featuring Scott Weiland)
"Wild, Sweet and Cool"
From "Legion of Boom"
"Born Too Slow" (Featuring John Garcia & Wes Borland)
"Starting Over"
"Bound Too Long"

See also

External links

 

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