An otherworldly, sanguine forest of braided lights blip around the edges of Megan James as she gracefully saunters through their enveloping elegance. The array of sound which pulses through the club echo out like a child’s laughter on a hazy summer afternoon: distant and comforting; at play. And the crowd breathes, bounces, and moves as a single unit almost as if Corin Roddick’s production is the maelstrom and the audience is the ship romantically bobbing in and out of the electronic tides.
Supporting the release of their sophomore album, Another Eternity, Purity Ring has upped the ante with a new live performance with that could only be described as artistry for artistry’s sake. They’ve always been an act which embraces the affect of atmosphere and the power of performance art, as seen with the DIY cocoon set that made them a must-see act during their last tour, the electronic forest on display during their new set is like the starry-eyed, imaginative fever dream stemming from a young child’s fascination with lightning bugs. These visuals channel a certain electricity complementing the soft, chilling vocals from James as Roddick’s percussive, electro beats swarm the fibers of your being.
What happens is the audience becomes an active participant in the dreamy ebb and flow of the atmosphere as the coos and blips and snares and kicks invite those attending to traverse down into their electro-pop rabbit hole. The choice to open with the rapturous combination of “Stranger Than Earth” straight into “Push Pull” is a warm blanket that slowly shuts down the nerves, but it is a proper glimpse as to the magic that slowly unveils itself during the concise runtime of the show. Songs like “Fineshrine” and “Lofticries” from their debut LP hover through the air like sugarplums ripe for the picking often culminating in pulsing waves of light from the forest shrouding the duo. This is a nice contrast to their live performances of “Flood on the Floor” and “Dust Hymn” which play like a trapped out, Nero inspired trip into dark canyons where lost souls go to rave before eventually culminating in the fan favorite “Begin Again” at show’s end; a song choice that makes the crowd erupt into an electro-pop apex of music ejaculate.
With notes of Cocteau Twins, Björk, and more recent atmosphere masters like M83 or Fever Ray, Purity Ring manages to achieve a level of weird that’s in tune with their soundscapes while having a certain approachability that connects members of different cloths: the ravers; the hipsters; and even a 10 year old girl in the balcony celebrating her birthday. It requires a very rare quality of beatific detail to be yourself without catering to mainstream sensibility while harboring fans from all walks of life. Seeing Purity Ring is like discovering the safe space you never knew you needed.
