Purity Ring are currently weightless. After over 10 years and three brilliant LPs released via 4AD, the alt pop duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick are gearing up to put out their first EP, Graves, on their own record label, The Fellowship.
Though they’ve conceptually moved into a new era beyond their three-album trilogy — 2012’s Shrines, 2015’s Another Eternity, and 2020’s WOMB — the Graves EP (out this Friday, June 3rd) is still a quintessential Purity Ring release. Hazy, brooding synths rise and fall, Megan James’ effortless pop hooks are clean and crystalline, and Corin Roddick’s drum sounds are as dynamic and glitchy as ever.
But luckily for Purity Ring, the duo is relishing in the opportunity to release something outside of the cycle they’ve created for themselves. They are always extremely deliberate about their release schedule, taking five years in between Another Eternity and WOMB to make sure they felt as confident as possible in their material.
Graves, then, finds Purity Ring “stepping out” of the trilogy mindset and creating with more immediacy and less preciousness. “It feels more liberating to put out music in this way,” James tells Consequence. “There’s this added pressure to pay attention to all the tiny details, but with this EP, we’re kind of relieved of that.”
Having their own record label is certainly a huge part of the new equation, but Purity Ring don’t plan on completely ditching their work flow for a more streaming-oriented approach. “I think our process is very much more concerned with putting out music that we think is good and finished rather than staying on top and being present and making sure we’re on a playlist every week or whatever,” says James about their output frequency. In other words, “just the good shit will last.”
