Show review: Purity Ring at Northeastern University – 9/29
Buzz- and bass-heavy experimental electronic duo Purity Ring played a free outdoor show at the Northeastern University campus Saturday evening.
Purity Ring’s debut record Shrines has only been out since late July, but even prior to its release the band was drawing massive attention and headlining a stage at the Pitchfork Music Festival. They fit the mold of an indie buzz-band as well as any group ever has. The hype surrounding their early shows and the release of Shrines was deafening, but upon hearing the record and witnessing a performance in person, it all feels pretty justified.
Vocalist Megan James and instrumentalist Corin Roddick take what could easily be a statically dull live show and create something dynamic and arresting out of it. Purity Ring’s live sound is based entirely in beats and samples, and in plenty of cases that can get deathly boring to watch. It’s a genuine challenge to make fiddling with a table of gadgets visually interesting, but Roddick’s custom built synth-tree pulls it off pretty well. He eschews the traditional MIDI controller in favor of triggering samples and loops by striking a series of LED lanterns suspended around him. The network of pod-like objects hanging above the rest of the stage are wired into the system as well, glowing green, blue and purple in correspondence with the music. Free of any traditional stage lighting, the duo establish an absorbing mood with this unique rig which fits their mysteriously warped take on synthpop perfectly.
Even from a pair of laptop speakers, the heavy low-end of Shrines is pretty evident. Live, theses songs kick you square in the chest. Roddick’s melodic and Earth-rumbling compositions have an otherworldly quality to them that’s emphasized as he manipulates them, conjuring new intros and outros. James’ vocals float in the midst of the sonic swirl, filtered, delayed and pitch-shifted on the fly by one of Roddick’s myriad devices. Her vocal hooks and abstractly body-centric lyrics elevate these songs above solid post-dubstep electronica to something more interesting and addictive. She owns that during performances, stalking the stage with a charisma that makes up for the fact that the other half of her band is tied to his gadgets. James even managed to get the crowd remarkably amped up on Saturday over an album’s worth of decidedly chilled-out music.
Given that they only have eleven songs to their name, the duo’s set clocked in at well under an hour. That was more than enough time for them to make an impression though. Purity Ring have carved out a niche in the current landscape of electronic music, perfecting a very specific sound that they purvey in an undeniably stylish manner. They put on a show of captivatingly catchy songs and dazzling visuals that feels worthy of all the hype.
