Purity Ring – Shrines out today

Purity Ring make lullabies for the club, drawing equally from airy 90s R&B, lush dream pop, and the powerful, bone-rattling immediacy of modern hip hop. The Halifax/Montreal-based duo comprised of Corin Roddick and Megan James are set to release their debut album Shrines on July 24th, 2012 with Last Gang Records. You can hear the first single Obedear here and get ready to experience their phenomenal live show during their upcoming tour that includes stops in Montreal, Ireland, the UK and Toronto for NXNE (full dates listed below).

Since their inception in 2010 Purity Ring has been making some big noise with the likes of Pitchfork, NPR, Fader and Stereogum. They jumped onto the scene in 2011 with three self-released songs including the internationally acclaimed Ungirthed (also featured on Shrines). Despite the band’s young age (Corin 21, Megan 24) Purity Ring is ready to deliver one of 2012’s most assured and anticipated debuts with Shrines. This album feels like anything but a first record – its vocal hooks are inescapable, its lush production, futuristic and sophisticated, is as pristine as anything on pop radio. The record’s 11 tracks trace a unique aesthetic universe that is carefully crafted and fully realized – deftly walking the lines between trap-rap exhilaration and otherworldly rapture, pleasure-center pop and diaristic emotion, childlike dread and total self-possession.

Their live performances are equally impressive. Rarely do new bands have such a fully formed vision for their show. Every detail is thought out, from their outfits (all designed and handmade by expert stitcher Megan), to the tactile, hybrid musical instrument / lighting machine that Corin built himself. The resulting spectacle can’t be overstated: infectious vocal leads chopped and screwed improvisationally, synth leads and lighting triggered live with a drummer’s precision.

Purity Ring’s performance is a lived synaesthesia that transcends the pitfalls often associated with live electronic-based music. Of course, perhaps the most exciting thing about Purity Ring is the overriding sense that these live performance innovations and their exceptional debut Shrines are merely the beginning of a collaboration whose remarkable chemistry is sure to bear much more to come – future pop, in every sense of the phrase.

2012 is the year that we all need to experience Purity Ring!

Shrines Tracklisting:
1. Crawlersout
2. Fineshrine
3. Ungirthed
4. Amenamy
5. Grandloves
6. Cartographist
7. Belispeak
8. Saltkin
9. Obedear
10. Lofticries
11. Shuck

Upcoming Tour Dates:
4/27 Rockdale, TX Nocturnal Wonderland Texas
5/22 Montreal, QUE Casa Del Popolo
5/23 Ottawa, ONT Café Dekcuf
5/26 George, WA Sasquatch Festival
5/31 Barcelona, ES Primavera Festival
6/3 Dublin, IE Forbidden Fruit Festival
6/5 Amsterdam, NL Vondelkirk
6/8 Berlin, DE Berghain Kanteen
6/11 Paris, FR Chez Moune
6/12 London, UK White Heat @ Madame Jojo’s
6/14 Toronto, ONT NXNE @ Wrong Bar
7/6 Toronto, ONT Danforth Music Hall%
7/7 Montreal, QUE Club Soda %
7/8 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club %
7/10 Brooklyn, NY Celebrate Brooklyn %
7/11 Millvale, PA Mr. Smalls Theater %
7/13 Chicago, IL Pitchfork Festival
7/14 Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theater %
7/15 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue %
% = with Dirty Projectors