Having released their third LP, WOMB, in April of 2020, “future pop” connoisseurs Purity Ring never got a chance to properly tour the album’s songs, which each serve as a coming-of-age tale of a female protagonist as they are forced to face the deepest-cutting traumas of modernism, which Pitchfork compared to Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal feminist text The Second Sex. However, the Edmonton-based duo – comprised of instrumentalist and producer Corin Roddick and vocalist Megan James – recently kicked off a two-month tour which will have them returning to Eraserhood’s most famous haunt, Union Transfer, Monday, June 27th.
Just in time for this run of dates (well, technically, a few nights in), Purity Ring dropped their first-ever EP, graves, on June 3rd, just about a month-and-a-half shy of the 10-year anniversary of their debut LP and electropop classic, Shrines. The EP is the first release from the band’s own label, The Fellowship, and rings of a matured and charmingly glossy reflection-on and reminder-of the beauty of the songs on Shrines, which are most often characterized as synth-pop or dream pop, but which Roddick regularly clarifies owe far more to the hip hop and R&B of the ‘90s than anything to come from mopey and heavily-eyelinered former punks in the ’80s. Get your tickets while you can and check out the music video for the EP’s title track, of which James says, “This song has been haunting us for 8 straight years so we’re very glad to let it be heard. We hope it brings you as much joy as it has now brought us. Thank you for listening and please enjoy the beautiful music video about human cells.”
*Get your tickets here.
