By the time Canadian duo Purity Ring released their debut album Shrines, internet audiences were already obsessed with their glitchy and spellbinding futuristic pop music. The internet served as an incubator for both their songs and their fan base—Corin Roddick composed beats in Montréal and sent them to Megan James in Halifax, who then added her shimmering soprano and twisted fairytale lyrics and sent the results back to Roddick, who finalized the songs and uploaded them to Tumblr, where a rabid community of fans quickly formed. Using Tumblr as a distribution platform, listeners could download the tracks for free and disseminate them over social media, and it wasn't long before the tracks went viral—“Obedear," their fourth song, reached 40,000 views on YouTube less than two days after it was released.
A year and a half later and Purity Ring were playing to huge crowds at SXSW, Pitchfork Festival, and Pop Montreal and went on to do a sell-out tour. For artists whose mobility on stage is limited by being tethered to electronic instruments that are still largely incomprehensible to typical audiences, translating the emotional connection of their recorded material into an engrossing live show can be a challenge. Roddick's previous band, Gobble Gobble, dealt with this by having band members act as hype men—dressed in tutus and fairy wings (and not much else), Roddick and company ran into the crowd, dancing up a frenzy. Purity Ring, though, went for a chiller approach.
On their last tour, the duo teamed up with Vancouver-based sensory installation producers Tangible Interaction, who also designed the light-up zygotes for Arcade Fire's Summer Into Dust performance, to create a series of light cocoons, which they explain in the video above.
We also caught up with Roddick and Tangible Interaction's Creative Director Alex Beim to break down both the stage show and the broader idea of how to make electronic music feel organic in the interview below.
Purity Ring perform "Belispeak" at Pitchfork Music Festival 2012
Corin Roddick: Rock music is made on drums and guitars, so you can watch someone recreate it on stage on instruments. But with electronic music that's made strictly on a laptop, you can't really watch someone in the original environment that they created it. Or you could, but I don't think it would be very stimulating. So you have to go above and beyond and find different means of actually creating a show.
It's funny, with DJ culture, people aren't looking at a DJ, they're dancing. But when you put the DJ into a band context and it's just a room of people staring at them, suddenly it gets super weird. Something needed to be done about it.
Setup 1. Photo by Steve Louie.
The first version was for the first few months we were playing shows. The idea was to have an instrument that could be played percussively, like with mallets, but would send signals that would connect to a synthesizer or multiple synthesizers and would make the noise I wanted but also give visual feedback. The first one we made was just a bunch of copper and brass pipes stuck together kind of in a tree all over the place. It was a good first attempt but it didn't always work the way we wanted it to.
-
Ace of Base's Secret Nazi Past
Before he founded Ace of Base, Ulf Ekberg was a member of Commit Suiside, a Nazi punk band.
-
Parquet Courts - "Light Up Gold Road Trip" (Full Documentary)
In this new documentary, Noisey follows rising indie rockers Parquet Courts from Mexico to Texas and London as they tour to support their debut LP, 'Light Up Gold.'
-
Yung Lean Doer Is the Weirdest 16-Year-Old White Swedish Rapper You'll Hear This Week
Yung Lean raps over pillow-fluffy beats and raps about glory holes and Arizona Iced Tea. Who the fuck is this kid? And why is he like this?
-
Adam Ant - The British Masters, Chapter 6
Noisey's John Doran talks with the great post-punk pop star Adam Ant about tribal body mods and layering tape.
-
Photos: Taking Acid at Coachella
When Paley sent these photos in, she included a nice little caveat over email that we've decided to reprint here in full, not only because it's too good to edit, but because her photographs of her and her weird buddies riding the snake are some of the best
-
R.I.P. Storm Thorgerson (1944-2013)
On Thursday, the hyper-talented graphic designer, artist, and famed album cover creator Storm Thorgerson passed away after a battle with cancer. He was 69 years old.
-
The Internet Is Scary
As of six months ago, my Facebook fanpage is like a dojo where hormonal teenagers hone their technique. Here is a heartfelt poem from some kid who wants to rape, kill, and marry me.
-
I Accidentally Touched Little Richard's Butt One Time
It was in the Detroit airport. After it happened Little Richard said, "He graze my derriere."
-
Listen to St. Lucia's Remix of The Colourist's "Little Games"
Last month, Cali quartet the Colourist released "Little Games," and St. Lucia just pulled a warm Balearic blanket over the whole thing, sanding away its rough edges with bright synths and lightly gated percussion.
-
Aaron Montaigne, Godfather of Screamo, is More Interesting Than You Can Ever Hope to Be - Part Two
On surviving combat in Iraq and Afghanistan with the help of magic, 'Bladerunner,' and everything in between.
NOW PLAYING ON YOUTUBE
Comments