An imaginary afternoon in Calgary, somewhere between vintage synthesizers, forgotten record stores, existential questions and the comforting feeling of being understood.
By Mitxoda
Somewhere in Calgary, a sound is waiting to be discovered.
I like to imagine myself arriving at the studio of Crystal Eyes on one of those afternoons when nobody is particularly concerned about the time.
There might be a half-finished coffee sitting next to a synthesizer. Cables running across the floor. A guitar waiting patiently in the corner. Perhaps an old keyboard that someone found somewhere and simply couldn’t leave behind.
And, of course, there would be music.
Not necessarily a finished song. Perhaps just a melody, a strange sound, or one of those little musical accidents that suddenly makes everyone in the room stop talking.
That’s how I picture meeting Crystal Eyes, the Canadian band based in Calgary, on Treaty 7 territory.
I haven’t actually entered their studio. But after reading their words and discovering the way they approach music, I feel as though I’ve been invited into something much more intimate than a rehearsal room.
Their creative universe. And believe me, it’s an interesting place to visit.
A little bit of yesterday, a little bit of tomorrow
Trying to describe Crystal Eyes through a single genre would probably be the quickest way to misunderstand them.
There are echoes of The Cure and New Order, those unmistakable 1980s atmospheres where melancholy somehow learns to dance.
There is the dreamy, sometimes dizzying world of Slowdive, Lush, Mazzy Star and Beach House. There are traces of 1960s psychedelia, and even the dramatic emotional universe of girl groups like The Shangri-Las.
You could draw a whole musical family tree. But that wouldn’t tell the complete story.
Because Crystal Eyes aren’t really interested in reproducing the past. Their influences seem more like old friends who happen to pass through the studio, occasionally leaving something behind.
And then the band does something else with it. Something contemporary. Something personal.
I find this particularly interesting because we live in a musical world that constantly asks artists to define themselves.
What genre are you? Which playlist do you belong to? Who do you sound like?
Crystal Eyes seem perfectly comfortable answering: a little bit of everything, actually.
And why not?
That’s one of the beautiful privileges of independent music. You can refuse the box before anyone has even finished drawing it.
You don’t need permission
At some point in our imaginary conversation, I would probably ask how all of this began.
And I love the answer.
As a child, the band’s principal voice in this conversation wanted to become an astronaut.
An astronaut!
I can’t help smiling at that.
Because, in a way, making music isn’t such a different ambition. You spend your life exploring things that aren’t necessarily visible, trying to reach places nobody has quite visited in the same way before.
The members of Crystal Eyes started playing in bands as teenagers. High school groups, musical experiments, changing identities, discoveries and mistakes.
Much of their background comes from punk and alternative music.
Not just the sound, but the attitude.
You don’t need permission to make something.
That sentence deserves to be written above the entrance of every independent recording studio on the planet.
It reminds me why I started Mitxoda in the first place.
Not because the world was missing another music platform. Not because we needed another algorithm to decide what deserves attention. But because there are people making extraordinary things, often without asking anyone’s permission, who deserve to be heard.
And Crystal Eyes belong to that universe.
The song knows before you do
There’s another part of their creative process that fascinates me.
The lyrics don’t necessarily begin with a message.
They begin with words, instincts, fragments, associations. A stream of consciousness that gradually becomes something meaningful.
The meaning often arrives afterwards. The band compares the process to sculpting: the figure is already hidden inside the material, and the artist’s job is simply to uncover it.
I love that image, too.
We often imagine artists sitting down with a grand intention, determined to explain something important about the world. But sometimes the most honest art comes from not knowing exactly what you’re trying to say.
You follow something. You trust it.
And one day, perhaps while listening back to a recording, you suddenly understand what you’ve been talking about all along.
Crystal Eyes particularly enjoy this stage of writing and recording, when everything is still possible.
Even the repetition. Even the struggle.
That wonderful, maddening obsession of having a song inside your head that refuses to leave until you’ve given it a home. Anyone who has ever tried to create something from nothing will recognise the feeling.
Strange machines, human emotions
Now, if I were actually visiting their studio, there’s one thing I would absolutely insist on seeing.
The Theravox.
It’s a rare Canadian-made electronic instrument, inspired by early synthesizers and the Ondes Martenot. Its touch-sensitive ribbon lets musicians create those sliding, almost ghostly tones that seem to belong somewhere between science fiction and a distant memory.
And Crystal Eyes love that kind of thing.
Synthesizers, unusual instruments, vintage machines: anything capable of producing a sound they haven’t quite heard before.
I can imagine a whole afternoon disappearing while exploring a single peculiar noise.
But what I find beautiful is the contrast. All this technology, all these electronic textures, and yet the objective remains profoundly human.
To create a feeling.
To touch something that cannot really be explained.
A strange machine might produce the sound, but it’s the person behind it who gives that sound a reason to exist.
Looking forward, carrying yesterday
The band’s latest record also suggests a deeper change.
They describe it as a progression: more collaborative, more expansive, and less concerned with displaying influences than with finding a voice of their own.
There’s something moving about that transition.
In the beginning, we often create by assembling the things we love. We borrow colours, gestures, sounds and ideas from the people who inspired us.
Eventually, if we’re fortunate, something new emerges.
Something recognisably ours.
For Crystal Eyes, that musical evolution accompanies some serious questions.
Technology. The future. Existential dread. The weight of history, including Canada’s colonial past.
How do we move forward when the past continues to shape us?
How much control do we actually have over our own destiny?
These aren’t questions with comfortable answers.
And the band doesn’t pretend to have found them. I appreciate that.
Especially today, when everyone seems expected to have a strong opinion, a clear position and an instant solution to absolutely everything. Sometimes an artist’s role is simply to keep asking the question.
And to create a space where we can ask it together.
I miss the record store, too
Our imaginary afternoon has probably reached the point where the conversation moves away from the equipment and towards memories.
And suddenly we’re talking about record stores.
Remember those?
Not simply places to buy records, but places to get lost. You’d walk in looking for one thing and leave with three completely unexpected discoveries. Someone behind the counter would say, “If you like this, you have to hear that.”
And off you went.
A new band. A new sound. A new universe.
Crystal Eyes remember that culture with affection. Sonic Youth, Nirvana and the wider alternative scene helped shape their musical imagination, even though they were too young to fully experience the grunge era as it happened.
But there’s no simplistic nostalgia here.
They also recognise the incredible opportunity offered by today’s accessibility.
Music from across the planet, traditions that might once have been almost impossible to discover, artists who can now reach listeners thousands of kilometres away.
That contradiction fascinates me.
We have never had access to so much music. And perhaps we’ve never needed genuine human recommendations quite so badly.
It’s another reason why I believe in the little community we’re building around Mitxoda and Le Salon Indie.
Because discovery should still feel like one person turning to another and saying:
You really need to hear this.
Not because a machine calculated a perfect match. Because someone felt something.
The stories we tell ourselves
At the heart of Crystal Eyes, underneath those layers of dreamy guitars and electronic textures, lives a philosophy firmly rooted in punk.
Question things. Challenge authority.
Imagine something better for everyone.
And, as the band wonderfully puts it, “Don’t be an asshole.”
I genuinely laughed when I read that.
Not because it’s particularly complicated, but because it might be one of the simplest and most useful artistic manifestos ever written.
There is also a more philosophical idea that stays with me.
“We become the stories we tell ourselves.”
Think about that for a moment.
Our memories, our fears, our dreams, the things we believe about who we are — they all contribute to the stories in which we live. And art has this extraordinary ability to change those stories.
Sometimes just a little.
Sometimes completely.
Perhaps that’s why a song can arrive at precisely the right moment and feel as though it has been waiting for us all our lives.
Japan, poetry, and an unfinished map
So what comes next? Japan, hopefully.
Crystal Eyes dream of touring there, of writing another record, and of exploring other creative territories: non-fiction, poetry, perhaps theatre or film.
I like the absence of a rigid master plan. There is ambition, certainly, but also curiosity.
And curiosity is a wonderful thing to preserve.
Especially when you’ve been making music long enough to know how easily creativity can become routine. The best artists, I think, keep a little space open for whatever might surprise them next.
Something that lingers
Before leaving this imaginary studio, I have two final thoughts.
The first is about what Crystal Eyes want their listeners to experience. They don’t talk about fame, recognition, technical perfection or breaking musical boundaries. They want people to feel good. To feel seen.
To recognise something of themselves in the music. To experience that strange familiarity of hearing a song for the first time and somehow feeling they’ve known it forever.
I find that rather beautiful.
Because when you think about it, isn’t that what we’re all looking for?
Not necessarily to be admired. Not even always to be understood.
Sometimes just to be recognised.
To know that somewhere out there, another human being has experienced a feeling we thought belonged only to us.
And then comes my favourite little question.
If Crystal Eyes’ music were a dish, what would it taste like?
The answer? Umami.
Rich, satisfying, balanced flavours. But with something unexpected that stays in your mouth afterwards.
I smiled again 🙂
Because that’s actually a wonderful description of the music I love.
Not necessarily the loudest music. Not always the most complicated, the most fashionable or the most immediately impressive. Just something that stays.
A melody that returns when you’re walking home, or just a lyric that suddenly makes sense three days later.
That strange little sound that you can’t quite forget. You know what I mean…
Think of a song that makes you feel a little less alone.
And as I imagine myself leaving the Crystal Eyes studio, I think that’s what I’d take home.
Not a genre or a collection of vintage instruments. Not even a perfectly explained artistic philosophy.
Just this simple idea:
The best music doesn’t merely ask you to listen. It makes you feel seen.
And sometimes, long after the last note has disappeared, something beautiful is still lingering.
From Calgary to wherever you’re listening, thank you, Crystal Eyes, for opening a window into your creative universe.
Keep discovering. Keep questioning. And keep listening to each other.
With love,
Mitxoda
