Chalk - Crystalpunk (Smoke) LP

Chalk’s full-length debut Crystalpunk channels the band’s roots and upbringing into a tense, propulsive collision of industrial electronics and dance-punk. Formed by Ross Cullen and Benedict Goddard, the duo draw on youth shaped by uncertainty, resilience and the lingering aftershocks of conflict, folding those experiences directly into the record’s pulse. Crystalpunk thrives on friction — between genres, eras and cultures — forging a sound that’s physical, confrontational and emotionally charged. It’s music built to move bodies as much as provoke thought, equally at home in a dark warehouse or on a festival stage. Since emerging in 2022, Chalk have built a formidable reputation through packed shows across the UK, Europe and the US, major festival appearances, and tours alongside peers at the sharp edge of contemporary guitar music. Their creative partnership began in film school, rooted in a shared obsession with experimental noise and underground culture. Recorded in Donegal with longtime collaborator Chris W Ryan, Crystalpunk captures a band coming into focus — a portrait not just of Chalk, but of the place and pressures that shaped them, and a refusal to stand still in the face of inherited chaos.