CRystal Eyes Announce new album “secret Oscillator” out November 18th!
Watch the music video for the first single, “Pretending to be people”
Calgary indie standouts Crystal Eyes have announced their next album, Secret Oscillator, will be released on Wednesday, November 18th. In celebration of the announcement, they’re sharing the lead single “Pretending to Be People” and its accompanying video. The band’s kaleidoscopic palette with beautiful shards of dream pop, 60s girl group, psych, new wave pioneers, shoegaze, and anthemic indie rock washes “Pretending to Be People” in dazzling layers. The video was directed by Your Wild Friend (Ava Wild) and the imagery marries the comfort of the familiar with the transcendental, a time and feeling that can’t quite be placed. The joy of breaking night with your friends and driving down country roads sits alongside the wonder of paganistic sun and moon worship iconography like a dream where the boundaries have been collapsed.
“Pretending to be People is about being present enough to see what's really in front of you — to be able to recognize your own god. Can you be really in the moment? Can you actually feel it all? Can you be everything to everyone?”
WATCH the music video NOW
Pre-Save the Album
BTS!
Secret Oscillator is a future-facing record about the past, losing control and searching for intimacy. Its musical pulse traces the tension of forward motion without certainty, reckoning with colonization, environmental damage, and technological acceleration while knowing there’s no return to some purer past. Where will we go? What do we want? Who are we really?
An oscillator implies rhythm and propulsion, but also friction. A system in conflict with itself. In a world locked into the inertia of constant crisis, Secret Oscillator asks listeners to surrender “the illusion of being totally in control,” if only for a moment. It confronts the uneasy truth that humanity’s past will inevitably shape its future, even as we stand on the precipice of a technological revolution we don’t seem ready for. As one lyric asks with unsettling calm: “I hope everything you’ve done is who you really are.”
We are a secret to ourselves, the album suggests, haunted by shadow selves and hidden motives, trying to excavate meaning inside emotional burnout. “I already cried enough for you” “Could you love me again?” … “I will crawl to make you feel my love.” These aren’t grand declarations so much as a whispered acceptance. The “other” will also be secret to us.
Ultimately, Secret Oscillator is holistic rather than nostalgic. It doesn’t offer comfort so much as clarity—less about restoring what was, more about asking whether we understand who we are becoming.
About the recording
This was recorded during an intense, leather-jacket-clad five-day marathon at OCL Studios, followed by an equally relentless two-day sprint in Andrew Woods' Mile End Montréal studio and additional tracking at Brock Geiger's Studio B in Calgary, the album bears the imprint of obsession, persistence, and creative endurance. Some songs arrived in flashes of lightning-bolt inspiration; others were painstakingly shaped through collaboration, with multiple voices and perspectives carefully negotiated until everything finally clicked into place. The result is an album that feels both expansive and deeply considered, richer and more nuanced because of the process that created it.
All songs by Crystal Eyes
Erin Jenkins – vocals, synth
Jordan Tettensor – guitar
Paul de Andrade – drums
Joleen Toner – synth, guitar
Brady Kirchner – bass
Additional Players
Ryan Bourne – bass, synth, percussion
Brock Geiger – bass, synth
Produced by Andrew Woods
Mixed by Mark Lawson
Mastering by Harris Newman
Engineering by Trent Dolsen
Recorded at OCL Studios, Studio Royal Subs Montreal and Studio B
Album Art by Marc Rimmer
Made with the support of Calgary Arts Development
Watch the video for ‘don’t turn around’
Our next single from THE SWEETNESS RESTORED is out
February 24th!
The Music Video for WISHES Premieres on Flood Magazine
CRYSTAL EYES ANNOUNCE NEW FULL-LENGTH ALBUM ON BOBO INTEGRAL RECORDS
(January, 2022) It's been a hard, weird two years for music, but we're excited to finally announce that we've signed to Madrid-based Bobo Integral Records, and our new full-length album will be out on April 22nd, 2022!
We have SO many people to thank for this record, especially Andrew Woods (Legal Vertigo), who produced, engineered and scattered his special soul all across it, and Mark Lawson, who mixed it all together into something pretty great.
It also features appearances, performances and inspirations from an impressive group of geniuses, including Basia Bulat, Scott 'Monty' Munroe (Preoccupations) and Eve Parker Finley. All recorded under the backdrop of beautiful Montreal's Break Glass Studios.
Thanks also to our funders the AFA, Alberta Music and Calgary Arts Development for their support.
The first single, Wishes and music video (directed by Ryan Bourne and Rebecca Reid and filmed by Alexis Moar), will be out Thursday, January 20th, so DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!
xoxoxo
-Crystal Eyes
The Castle Video for ‘Wishes’
A GHOST, A CASTLE AND A MYSTERIOUS POEM
When it is no longer night and yet not day, strange ghosts of ourselves have oftentimes been seen to slip away as quietly as the grey morning mist. A few come back to haunt us again, others never return. Only one thing they have in common; We may follow none of them. Nor is there any need to follow when the light - promise of day - awakens our newfound strength.
(June, 2021) We were pleased to have the opportunity to film a new music video for the first track off our new album, ‘The Sweetness Restored’. The video was directed by Rebecca Reid and Ryan Bourne, and filmed by Alexis Moar over 3 days at the ‘castle house’ and a nearby bird sanctuary.
Thanks to Calgary Arts Development for funding the project.
Watch for the new video coming January 20th, 2022!
Winter ‘BIG WEEKEND’ Tour
We will be at BIG WINTER CLASSIC Festival and WINTERRUPTION Festival in January 2020!
January 23rd - (BIG Winter Classic) w/ Jennifer Castle @ Last Best, Calgary AB
January 26th - Winterruption @ Downtown Edmonton Community League, Edmonton AB
CRYSTAL EYES ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM WITH BASIA BULAT AND ANDREW WOODS
Crystal Eyes are excited to announce they will be recording their next album in July 2019 in Montreal and co-produced by Basia Bulat and Andrew Woods. Check out a behind-the-scenes look at the recording process.
RADICAL SOFTNESS -new split with marlaena moore
RADICAL SOFTNESS - The split
In the summer of 2017, Crystal Eyes and embarked on the Radical Softness cross-Canadian tour. With a mission to play shows featuring bands with female-identifying members from coast to coast, RADICAL SOFTNESS was a celebration of femininity, women in music and hardworking dream pop rock and roll. In 2019, these two acts have come together to release Radical Softness - The Split in commemoration of their partnership and the community they've built.
RADICAL SOFTNESS COMES OUT FEB. 12th!
The video for PEACE FOREVER premieres on CUPS n CAKES!
PEACE FOREVER - Crystal Eyes First song off RADICAL SOFTNESS - THE SPLIT Crystal Eyes/Marlaena Moore, out Feb. 5th on Double Lunch Records!
About the video director: Mx. Dore is an interdisciplinary creator, intent of translating mediums between live performance, music, and digital media.
CRYSTAL EYES is a genre-blending indie band from Calgary, Canada, making music that moves freely between dream rock, 80s new wave, shoegaze, psych and ’60s girl-group pop. Rather than pledging allegiance to any one sound, the band embraces the possibilities of oscillating between them, creating a distinctly post-modern mix of shimmering guitars, synths, melody and atmosphere.
Led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Erin Jenkins, Crystal Eyes’ latest album, Secret Oscillator, marks a shift toward a sound that feels increasingly their own. Where the band’s earlier work wore its influences openly, the new record pushes beyond those reference points, with more mature songwriting and a collaborative approach that draws from every member of the band, as well as producer Andrew Woods and session musicians Brock Geiger and Ryan Bourne.
The result is a record about finding agency in an increasingly disempowering world. Secret Oscillator explores intimacy, technology, environmental damage, colonization and empathy burnout, circling the question of what it means to take control of what you can. At its core, though, Crystal Eyes wants the music to be a sanctuary – a place that makes you feel good, feel seen, and leaves room for your own interpretation.
Recorded at OCL Studios and Studio B in Alberta, as well as Studio Royal Subs, Woods’ Montreal Mile End studio, Secret Oscillator was made with a spirit of experimentation and play. Woods approached his producer role as “vibe management,” creating a sense of possibility and creative freedom throughout the sessions, while Grammy-winning mixer Mark Lawson brought his singular ear and technical precision to the finished record.
After a period of stepping back from touring to write, record and regroup, Crystal Eyes returned to the stage in 2026 with a newly honed live show built around the new material. The band remains deeply connected to the supportive independent music communities that have shaped them in Calgary and across Canada, having previously shared stages with artists including DIIV and Dehd and performed at festivals including BreakOut West, Canadian Music Week, POP Montreal, Music Waste and Sled Island.
Secret Oscillator is a record that refuses to stay in one place. It is dreamy, noisy, melodic, strange and familiar in equal measure, inviting listeners to find whatever they need in it.
Photo by Walter E. Neuman
SELECT PRESS QUOTES
‘Calgary's Crystal Eyes are gearing up to release new album The Sweetness Restored which is out in April 22 via Bobo Integral. First single "Wishes" has a bit of a Cure "In Between Days" vibe.' -Brooklyn Vegan
'Warm up your facial muscles because this tune will have you smiling for a long time. The shimmering guitars and the rattling percussion all channel the greatness of the ’90s...Its heart lies in the saccharine vocal of front-woman and founder Erin Jenkins. With an air of Tracyanne Campbell, she wonders aloud whether dreams can be reality or at least whether we can momentarily escape this world with our one true friend.' -The Revue
'You can really hear that on “Wishes,” where Crystal Eyes channel both happiness and sadness into a dance-worthy, trippy tune.' -Indie 88
'A new bout of indie pop bliss swoons out of the stables at Bobo Integral today. Canadian collective Crystal Eyes smudge their jangles with a hazy nod to seminal sounds — finding themselves pulsing with a New Order heartbeat on “Wishes,” smearing their guitars with an Ecstasy-era MBV glow. ' -Raven Sings the Blues
‘…the tunes have a certain dreamy quality to them…her wavering voice and searching lyrics that are undeniably at the centre of Crystal Eyes.’ – National Post
‘…a psychedelic swirl of kaleidoscopic imagery that perfectly complements the trippy groove of the song.’ (about the music video for High Moon) - Exclaim
‘…a dream-pop barnburner’ – Chart Attack
‘…a nice and dreamy aesthetic to their sound– complete with sun bleached guitars and high-pitched female gang vocals.’ – Austin Town Hall
'Erin Jenkins establishes a Western Canadian beach-head for shoegaze/dream-pop with her own take on the genre. ' -Ride The Tempo
'[a] swoon-worthy downer-pop group' – AUX.
"Ponder just where these wonderful melodies form and where they will go.' - Weird Canada
Command us
Live tonight
CRYSTAL EYES ANnounced at BIG Winter classic & winterruption 2022
March 30th - BIG Winter Classic (Last Best Patio) w/ Astral Swans, Calgary AB GET TICKETS
April 1st - Winterruption (SOHO) w/ Art D’Ecco, Edmonton AB. GET TICKETS
CRYSTAL EYES ANnounced at BreakOut West 2019
We’ll be at Breakout West 2019!
Oct. 4th 9:30pm - The Gold Pan Saloon, Whitehorse
Oct. 5th 9:30pm - MacBride Museum, Whitehorse
MERCH & Discography
Visit our Bandcamp to buy physical and digital merch!
Crystal Eyes Bandcamp
Bring us home to your bedroom
-Crystal Eyes
