Portland, Maine isn’t widely considered a place with a rich music history. Even so, locally based rock quartet Crystal Canyon are proud to represent their hometown’s music scene and strive to defy expectations with their unique sound that draws from ‘80s and ‘90s shoegaze bands such as Lush (Merriam Webster describes shoegaze as “melodic rock music typically characterized by heavily processed electric guitar and indistinct often distant-sounding vocals”).
“It’s not really known as a rock and roll town, so a lot of people are surprised we’re from here,” says singer Lynda Mandolyn. “There’s not really a shoegaze scene here to be honest.”
One of the band’s favorite local places to practice and record in town is Acadia Recording Company, which is owned by guitarist and engineer Todd Hutchisen.
“Many bands record here at Acadia. I like to think of it as the heartbeat of the Portland music scene,” says Mandolyn. “Of course, there are other studios but this one is special because Todd owns it and works out of the studio.”
It’s where they’ve recorded all of their albums, including their most recent album Stars and Distant Light, which came out November. For the album, the band used a trial-and-error method of recording instruments onto analog tape for a textured sound.
“This studio is home base for us in a lot of ways,” says Mandolyn. “We record our records here and as a band, we’re really lucky to have this amazing place to go to and create.”
The studio played a key part in Crystal Canyon’s formation. About a decade ago, Mandolyn recorded a session at Acadia with her previous band Tiger Bomb and impressed Hutchisen so much that he asked her to form a band. They formed Crystal Canyon in 2015, since then rounding out the lineup with bassist .
Recently, they added a new chapter to their connection with the studio, filming their entry for our Water Tower Sessions series. After not being able to find time to record their session while touring, the studio came through in a pinch when they returned home. They decided to team up with videographer Serge Vladimiroff to film the session with the help of iPhones and a Panasonic Lumix.
“The iPhones were great because the recording function is easy to use and we placed three of them around the room to get different angles,” says Mandolyn. “We also used a Panasonic Lumix for some of the shots, but most are shot on iPhones and the quality is great!”
“The iPhones are convenient and I myself have a 13 special, and the video camera and the camera are just excellent quality. That’s why I kind of go for the bigger specialty iPhones just for really good video and picture taking, and I’ve always been an Apple person, and it’s something easy. Something easy we can set up and stuff.”
They decided to perform “Catatonia” off the new album as it is a very catchy song and the band hadn’t filmed a video for it yet. Mandolyn says “‘90’s desert themed, druggie videos” had a significant influence on the song and style of filming for the session.
“The experience was a positive one. We heard great through the headphones and just got a good overall mix and take of the song,” she says. “The moody lighting and creative vibe relates to the overall feel of the album. The album was recorded here so what better place than to showcase a song from the album in the place it was created?”
The session also gave them a chance to showcase their quieter side. Mandolyn says the band tends to be a loud rock band and a studio band that “love to layer instruments and melodies and make it more dreamy and ethereal and more sonic and driving.” The session gave them a chance to strip down the sound to its essence.
“It’s a challenge for us because we’re kind of a loud rock band but doing this session and doing it a little bit more stripped-down kind of shows two sides of a band,” Mandolyn says. “A band that can really rock and that is really technical, but can also play softer melodies, softer guitar, and still show the beauty of the song.”
Mandolyn hopes the band can go “a little bit more towards the softer side of songwriting” in future releases.
“I feel a little shift in myself kind of going for the more quiet, for the more delicate. A little more softer, a little more gentler,” she says. “That’s the kind of music I kind of see us going to in the future, just doing a more stripped-down thing.”
In addition, Mandolyn appreciated the “really liberating” “freedom of not having a guitar and just being able to sing.”
“I’ve played guitar up till this point and I really love just concentrating on the lyrics and singing,” she says. “We didn’t have a ton of time either which made us focus on getting a good take. We prefer putting out quality material and wanted this to be super special and really good.”
Scummy Water Tower caught up with Mandolyn recently to discuss the band’s latest album, growing the band’s sound through trial and error and finding creative inspiration as a songwriter.
The band formed in 2015 following a successful session that you were part of. Can you tell me a little bit about how the band formed and what appealed to you?
Well, I had moved to Portland, Maine in 2012, and I formed an all-female kind of rock and roll band called Tiger Bomb, and we went into the studio in 2014-ish, and that’s where I met Todd, and we went to his studio. So, he was doing the session and he heard me sing, and he really loved the backing vocal I was doing. It kind of reminded him of a shoegaze band that we both loved called Lush, who was from England. They were around in the early nineties, so they were part of the early shoegaze movement in the UK.
So, he told me that, and he said, “God, I love your voice, it reminds me of this band Lush.” And I’m like, “God, I love Lush.” So, a week later he emailed me, and he goes, “Lynda, I really want to form a shoegaze band with you.” So that’s how Crystal Canyon started. And we had songs, we brought ideas together, and he already had an idea in mind for the bassist, Jeremy Smith and the three of us have been together ever since.
How would you describe the band sound and what makes it unique?
We play very period piece guitar effects, ‘80s, early ‘90s pedal effects. We recorded a lot of our last album in analog and some digital as well, but we really love the analog sound. We’re just kind of purists in that way when we just released our third album Stars in Distant Light, and each of our albums has been released on vinyl. We haven’t released a cd, and we do digital download of course, but we’re more like a vinyl purist band. What else? We’ve been collaborating more, and it just seems like the sound is not only dreamy, but just more driving too, because we have a new drummer that joined a few years ago. His name is Nate Manning, and he also contributes to the musical music part of our songwriting. He plays drums and guitar. He’s a multi-instrumentalist.
It seems like every album has evolved into something stronger and more beautiful. We’re really proud of this new record, and it was literally two years in the making. We were in the middle of the pandemic when we had to halt playing shows, so we just continued to work in Todd’s studio in Portland there and really honed our craft, so to speak.
The band’s sound grew thanks to the addition of Nate Manning and additional instruments.
That’s correct. Not only guitars, but synth keyboards, real drums, and there might be a little bit of drum tracking on there. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but definitely more keys, old synths, piano, more of the analog instruments, analog synth, and I’m just trying to think if there’s quite a few guitar tracks, slight vocal effects, layering of vocals. Sometimes I would take two or three vocal tracks and we would blend them, and we just tried to make it as beautiful and as sonic as we could thinking about that.
But it just seemed like the songs really took their own shape. They kind of revealed themselves to us after we just continued to work on them. The guys demoed some individual songs, and they sent them to me, and I’d go, “wow.” I would instantly have a title for them, and then the lyrics kind of just came after that. So, it was kind of a magical, very creative process for this last album.
I imagine having more instruments expanded what you could do with the sound of the songs.
Oh yeah, definitely. For sure. It can just take you to places that you haven’t done yet. Like I said, it was kind of just revealing itself along the way. We just had ideas, “Hey, we should put this here,” or “This would sound really cool here.” Todd has an old organ in his studio, a Hammond B3 Organ, with Leslie Speaker, and kind of played keys through that, and it gives it a kind of a warbly mystical sound, I guess. It was very interesting and just very fun to layer the songs.
It sounds like the new album was a very time intensive process of trial and error.
Yeah, I guess in regard to that, we had collectively demoed about 16 or 17 songs. So, through trial and error, we just kind of went through each piece and just figured out which ones were stronger, which had the stronger bones of the song of the structure, and we whittled it down to nine songs for the album. We did put out another single before the record, it was called “Young Wonder,” but we just ended up releasing that as a single, so that didn’t appear on the album. So, I guess 10 altogether, 10 songs out of 17. And just making sure that those were the ones that we wanted to represent us to put on the album and to continue to work on and to really mold and develop.
What did you learn about yourself and the band doing it that way?
It’s interesting. In my case, it was more of a channeling experience, especially when it came to lyrics. Again, I listened to the song and words would come to me, not all the time, but most of the time, I would just listen to the song, the melody would come, I would write the lyrics, and then when I would go in the studio, I would have a rough draft in my mind how I would like the melody and the lyrics to go. But when I hit the studio, that’s when it just kind of came. It just kind of came to me and they would say, “Hey, that sounds great,” or maybe “tie this here.” So it was in the process that I learned that I love to not only collaborate but do Improvisation. I was getting better at improving, I guess. And those guys, my band mates are all just fabulous musicians, just amazing musicians. And we got very close to each other, closer as a band and friends, and we learned that the music is so special and just to continue doing this and to finally take it on the road and play for other people. A lot of people have bought our stuff through Bandcamp, and we’ve just gotten such great feedback. In general, for the new album and for the band itself.
What were some of the biggest surprises during this trial-and-error type process?
Well, I would say especially the last album, it seemed like we took songwriting and performance to the next level. We really stepped up our game. We really honed the craft. I know vocally my voice got better, it got stronger, the melody lines got stronger. It just organically kind of went into this beautifully more sonic driven direction, but still being beautiful, layered and stuff.
It was surprising because I didn’t think that we could create such a great album. I’m not tooting my own horn; I’m just saying that it really surprised me that it turned out so beautifully. It came together. It was magical. That’s all I could say. Hard work. And you just listen back at the end of the day and you’re like, “ah, okay. This is the kind of record I’ve always wanted to make. This was the kind of band that I want people to hear that would really love the band.” So that was my surprise.
You’ve also described the sound as cosmic and something that lets you in the band try a lot of different things lyrically and sonically. Can you talk about why you think so?
I do. And that’s why when I mentioned going into the studio already having some lyrics, but also channeling, I call it channeling. So that means it can be a download in your brain. It kind of appears to me in that moment. And I either write it down or I’ll be like, “okay, I want to try this. I want to try this right now.” In musical aspects, I guess it could be more of an improv or just kind of off the cuff way of recording or recording an idea, putting it down. That’s what I meant by cosmic. It was like a magical channeling of lyrics and ideas of music for me. And I wonder, in my day job, I’m an energy [healer] worker, so I do reiki on people, and that can be a cosmic experience. It’s an energetic…what do you call it…I don’t want to say job, but it’s a profession and it helps people. It helps you on a healing level. So, when I was in the studio, I felt that energy, I guess is what I’m trying to say when I mean cosmic channeling type of thing.
What’s the story behind the album’s title Stars in Distant Light?
That is a line from the last song called “Center of the Universe,” and the song’s about love and loss of people. We’ve lost a lot of friends, a lot of family members. Everyone gets older and we lose people that have been close to us. So, I came up with the title. I had a few running titles, and I put them by those guys. I’m like, “oh, hey, what do you think of these?” And I just kind of glanced at the lyrics and I’m like, “That’s kind of pretty, I wonder if they would like that.” So, I sent that to them and they’re like, “yes, that’s our favorite.” So, we just went with that.
Was your inspiration for “Judy Moody”?
Let’s see, I think Judy Moody. I have a neighbor in Maine, and I just met her over the summer, and she was just such a wonderful lady, and we introduced ourselves and she said that her name was Judy Moody, and I’m like, “that is one of the best names you can have.” So, I kept that name in my back pocket. Jeremy, our bass player, came up with that song. It was influenced by a band from Wales called Joanna Gruesome, and they kind of had a female/male vocal style going with the kind of fast guitar, very sonic, fast-paced song. And it kind of reminded me of that. And the song itself is about someone who is obsessed with somebody a little too much. So, I loved the title. I thought it was very catchy. And the song itself can apply to either a male female, so it’s not a woman stalking a man, or a man obsessed about a woman. It could be whatever people read into it.
What was the inspiration for the band’s song “Catatonia,” which the band performed for the session?
I was kind of influenced by early ‘90s bands, bands that did videos in the desert at that time. And I just thought about that. And I’ve always been just fascinated by catatonia, which is not a pleasant experience. I guess it is a mental issue where it makes people get catatonic and they can move in different weird shapes and they’re unaware that they’re doing these things. I don’t want to say sleepwalking. I don’t want to say a somnolence type of thing, but I guess I am. So, “Catatonia” was influenced by that, hence the song title. And it kind of took me back to the early ‘90s video desert kind of thing. And then the lyrics just came from there.
I think the press release describes “Catatonia” as a “a party trip in the desert for the broken-hearted on ecstasy.”
In the early nineties I did play some desert shows on some psychedelics, and it kind of intertwines with those feelings that I had when I came up with the lyrics.
How has Portland aided in the band’s development?
Well, it’s our home. We love it. It’s the most different place I’ve ever lived. I’m from, and I lived in San Francisco for many years, so Portland is smaller. Of course, there’s kind of a small music scene that’s getting bigger by the year. More and more people are moving to Portland. But in our aspect, we were just really lucky to find each other. I think the Portland music genre in Portland is all over the map. They’re not really any shoegaze bands per se. There’s a lot of rock and folk funky kind of stuff. It’s not really a rock and roll town. So, we’ll play Boston, or we’re doing our little tour here just to kind of branch out into different cities to play in front of different people. But the winters can be pretty harsh. And of course, an experience that I believe a lot of creativity came out of that, just being isolated and coming up with ideas that helped shape this record definitely and helped our direction for sure.
What do you like most about the studio that you recorded at?
Todd has two amazing engineers that work and help who helped with our sessions. Alice Anderson and Jason Phelps. They are top-notch engineers and really good friends. And it’s nice that we have this studio to be creative in and at our disposal. I think it’s the best studio in Portland, and there’s been more and more studios popping up here and there. But that was the first studio I went to when I moved to Portland and I met Todd, and I just fell in love with the space. And they have all kinds of amazing instruments, guitars, amps, just all kinds of things. It’s like home. That’s the best way I can describe it.
What are you most looking forward to in the year ahead?
Well, we’re looking forward to writing a new album. I mean, that’s always something that we have in our sights. We always talk about getting songs together for a fourth album. We’re going to be playing the The New Colossus Festival in New York in May. I’m not exactly sure what the date is yet, but it’s in between the 6th and the 10th and bands from all over the world will be playing it. It’s a great festival just to get in front of a lot of people. Industry people will be there, tons of fans of all the bands. It’s a good festival to play and we’re excited about that. And probably more touring. I’d love to go to Europe or Japan.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
