Solo and seeing music more clearly
Near the end of a 20-minute phone call from Los Angeles, Alice Glass, the former frontwoman of the electroclash band Crystal Castles, goes quiet. She says she has been feeling “a little bit frazzled” throughout the interview.
(That’s only been occasionally apparent with a few hesitant SnowBlood Tour featuring Alice Glass and Zola Jesus: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 28. $25$49.95. Slim’s, 333 11th St., S.F. www.slimspresents.com; 8 p.m. Sunday, April 29. $25. The Independent. 628 Divisadero St., S.F. www.theindependentsf.com
pauses and asides like “Does that make sense?” or “No, wait …” or “I’m just trying to put into words ...”)
“I really didn’t do a lot of interviews before,” Glass says. “It’s just something I really want to do more of because I remember reading different music magazines and things when I was a kid, and it made me really interested to learn about new music.”
Given the circumstances
under which she left Crystal Castles, that sentiment has a deeper significance: Alice Glass has found her voice, and she’s ready to use it.
“I definitely feel kind of limitless in what I can do,” she said about her solo effort. “If I want to sing a ballad about cutting myself, then I’m going to do that. If I want to write a two-minute punk song, then I can do that. That’s always been my favorite thing about music, feeling like it could be anything I want. Now it really is that for me.”
Glass is planning a twonight stop in San Francisco this weekend, at Slim’s on Saturday, April 28, and at the Independent on Sunday, April 29. She’s on tour with Zola Jesus, another dark and melancholic singer.
“It sounds so crazy,” Glass says, “but after touring for 10 years, I don’t think I’ve ever done a real tour with another female artist. It’s always been something I wanted to do.”
A little more than three years ago, Glass announced her break from Crystal Castles, founded by Glass and songwriter-producer Ethan Kath. There weren’t many details in the tweets she posted on Oct. 4, 2014, about her departure. But, in her own self-contained way, she said more than most could in two tweets:
“My art and my self-expression in any form has always been an attempt towards sincerity, honesty, and empathy for others. ...
“For a multitude of reasons both professional and personal I no longer feel that this is possible within CC.”
Kath responded in what appeared to be an attempt to undercut her contribution to the project. Eventually, the subject slipped away. That was until October, when, spurred by the #MeToo movement, Glass took to her website to detail, at length, the reasons she left. They included sexual, physical and mental abuse, she said. Kath responded again, filing a defamation suit, only to have it dismissed in February.
The effect, of course, is a solo Alice Glass, but also music with more clarity. Even if Glass’ voice was front-andcenter in Crystal Castles, it was often distorted, her lyrics hard to understand. But now, when on a track called “Without Love,” she sings, “Am I worth it or am I worthless?/ And will I ever figure it out?/ Sold myself to him/ Be your own victim/ And with this bondage/ Tie myself down,” there’s no mistaking what she’s saying.
That track comes from a self-titled EP Glass released last fall, and it’s not difficult to read between the lines. The music website Pitchfork called the album a “six-song ‘f— you.’ ” Glass, though, wouldn’t put it that way, exactly.
“It’s more about myself and how I feel about myself,” she says. “It’s more interesting to size yourself up, even though that means overcoming a lot of your grief and frustration and doing things that you regret. It’s definitely not for someone else.”
Only now, the 29-year-old says, after making music for almost half her life, is she arriving at a place where she feels secure in her talent and accomplishments.
Glass is nearly done with her first solo full-length album. It’s a hard collection of songs to describe, she says, but “to me, all the songs have this feeling of familiarity, like a bad dream with something that’s sort of comforting.”
Back in her days in Crystal Castles, Glass used to leap from the stage and perform with broken bones, but she rarely said more than a couple of words in interviews. She gave off the vibe that she didn’t feel much. That changed with her self-titled EP and will continue to change with her forthcoming album, she says.
“Some of my fans before thought of me as being almost like this nihilist woman who really didn’t care about what happened to her. That was kind of eating away at me in a lot of ways,” Glass says. “A barrier breaks where you stop caring what other people think and you just know there’s something guiding what you’re doing, and it feels sincere.”