The Crystalline Effect

The Crystalline Effect is an Australian electronic/techno/EBM/trip-hop duo consisting of Elenor Rayner (vocals) and Pete Crane (music). The project was founded in 2002 and they’ve been making music ever since. Their music tends to be incredibly beautiful, while the lyrics range from philosophical to romantic, and sometimes a mix of both.

Discography:

• Glass (2003)
• Blurred Edges (EP, 2006)
• Hypothermia (EP, 2007)
• Identity (2008)
• Ada Makes The Machines Sing (single, 2011)
• Industrial Re-Evolution (EP, 2011)

The Crystalline Effect provides examples of the following tropes:

• Anti-Love Song: "At 6 O’Clock", "Jagged Edges", "When You're Asleep"
• Break the Cutie: "Another Rainy Day"
• Break Up Song: "Poetry", "Do Not Open", "Nothing Warms This Room"
• Broken Bird: "Another Rainy Day", "Poetry"
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: Justified in that when the Do Not Open EP got leaked, it was downloaded thousands of times. The EP was cancelled and replaced with Hypothermia, half the next album (previously called Hypothermia) was scrapped, and it was renamed Identity. The band really can't afford what they lose to illegal downloading.
• Domestic Abuse: It's heavily implied that the protagonist of "Another Rainy Day" is in an abusive relationship which she refuses to leave.
  • And possibly the protagonist of "Do Not Open".
• Electronic Music
• Instrumentals: "Anechoic Lock". Instrumental versions of "Core Reaction" and "As Long As You Need" were released on Ada Makes The Machines Sing.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: After the Do Not Open fiasco, half the songs on it were scrapped, so the only versions of them kicking around are the ones that were illegally downloaded.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Why Do I Hate Myself", "How I Get Out", "Life Has Failed You"
• Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: The music swings from slow and sweet ("One Time In Life", "Right") to catchy and fast-paced ("As Long As You Need", "Why Do I Hate Myself", "How I Get Out") to hard and almost like industrial ("No Longer Evolving", "Ideologically Illogical"), especially since Pete started Shiv-R, an industrial act.
• New Sound Album: Well, New Sound EP. Industrial Re-Evolution is incredibly different from Identity, sounding like industrial (given that Pete spent quite a lot of the time between 2008 and 2011 as part of Shiv-R, an industrial duo, this makes sense) whereas Identity was mainly slow and soft electronic music.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: To whoever leaked Do Not Open: Really good job there, dude.
• Non-Appearing Title: "Anechoic Lock"
• Real Life Writes the Plot: See Digital Piracy Is Evil.
• Room Full of Crazy: It's mentioned in "Poetry" that 'she keeps words all over the walls'.
• Sanity Slippage Song: "Blue Sea", "Hypothermia" (possibly)
• Silly Love Songs: "Ialundra"
• Singing Simlish: "When The World Ends"
• Single-Stanza Song: "Five Ways To Run"
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: "Right", "One Time In Life"
• What Could Have Been: Had Do Not Open not been leaked, we’d have a very different Identity.
• Word Salad Lyrics: The lyrics are sometimes incomprehensible, swinging wildly around from one subject to the next, not that it matters.