PURITY RING

About PURITY RING

Purity Ring emerged from Edmonton, Alberta in 2010, a two-piece that figured out how to make pop music feel like something glimpsed through frosted glass. Megan James handled vocals while Corin Roddick built the production underneath, and together they carved out a sound that slotted somewhere between witch house, synth-pop, and R&B without really committing to any of those labels fully.

Their 2012 debut "Shrines" landed during that early-2010s moment when electronic music was getting weirder and more textured. The album worked because it balanced contrasts that shouldn't have fit together: James's high, breathy vocals against Roddick's bass-heavy production, cutesy imagery tangled up with lyrics about bodies and viscera. Songs like "Fineshrine" and "Obedear" became cult favorites, the kind of tracks that spread through Tumblr and late-night headphone sessions. The production felt detailed and physical, with Roddick custom-building a light-up MIDI controller he'd play during their live shows, which became a visual signature.

They spent a couple years on the touring circuit, including supporting Danny Brown on a tour that made absolutely no sense on paper but somehow worked. By the time "Another Eternity" arrived in 2015, they'd sanded down some of the rougher edges. The songs were more direct, production cleaner, hooks more obvious. "Push Pull" and "begin again" aimed for something closer to straight pop, though still filtered through their particular aesthetic. Some people missed the murkiness of the first record. Others appreciated that they were actually trying to move forward rather than make "Shrines" part two.

Then came a long stretch of relative quiet. Roddick produced for other artists. James pursued solo work under the name Deer Hex. When "WOMB" finally showed up in 2020, five years after their last album, it felt like they'd remembered what made them interesting in the first place. The production on tracks like "peacefall" and "stardew" sat somewhere between their early intricacy and their later pop ambitions. The album didn't reinvent anything, but it proved they still had a lane worth occupying.

Purity Ring never became the crossover act some predicted after "Shrines," and that's probably fine. They've maintained a specific audience that values their particular combination of pretty and unsettling, pop structure and experimental production. They've influenced a wave of artists working in adjacent spaces, even if that influence isn't always directly acknowledged. They tour when they have something to tour behind, stay quiet otherwise. No endless album cycles, no desperate bids for streaming playlists. Just two people from Edmonton who made electronic pop music sound like a music box playing in an empty room, and who still occasionally remind you they're around.

Their shows are precise and hypnotic rather than explosive. The crowd stands relatively still, almost meditative, watching dense visual projections while James delivers those processed vocals with palpable control. It's less about collective euphoria and more about sustained atmosphere. People seem transfixed.

Known for Fineshrine, Obedience, Crawl Spaces, Begin Again, Atoll

See PURITY RING Live