Moroni's Review of Purity Ring's "Shrines"

My grandfather was from Mexico, and his favorite kind of music was a brass music called banda sinaloense. This kind of polka music was loud, brash, and discordant.  My dad told me that Mexican men liked to listen to this music when they are very drunk.  When I listened to it, I could see why.  The music sounded like a drunk man lurching down the street, barely able to keep on his feet, and yet not falling.

What does banda sinaloense have to do with Purity Ring's debut album "Shrines"?

Well, first of all, I will tell you what this band is.  They are an electronic duo from Edmonton, Alberta.  They were signed to the prestigious 4AD label (which included Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, and whom I recently posted about here).

So, this is not a very conventional electronic band.  Their rhythm is very discordant.  There is no beat in the normal sense.  It is staggered and severed is several places.  There is no pulse where you are expecting one, and beats fill what you think will be empty spaces.  This is not the " boom boom boom" of club techno.  But you know what?  It works!

The music is slow and languid, like a slow jam on an acid trip.  (Sometimes it is just a bit plain slow-moving.)  And the same concept flows through every song from start to finish, each song blending into the next, making this a wonderful, dark ambient experiment.  The cement that hold it all together is Megan James' breathy, dreamy vocals.  It took several listens, but I see this album becoming one of my favorites.  Never has trip-hoppy music been so compelling since Mono in the '90s.

I am usually not a "lyric person", but James' lyrics are so stark and vivid and beautiful that you can't help but take note.  It's like poetry.  For instance, this selection from "Obedear":

I came down over the sleeping mountains

Where our white tones plunged

Into the weeping shelter

Tear our skin up out from the bottom

Leaves our ankles bare

Don't just wander back and forth and leave it

Build it into

Pinnacles and shrines

Of some,

Some ghastly predicament in mind

You'll find

Leaves us plastered to a bed of hairs

We'll be all coiled up near the bottom

With my chest, unbare it

Obedear, the sky is low

Gather up its harm and gods

With grateful arms

Obedear, the sky is low

Gather up its harm and gods

With grateful arms

It is hard to pinpoint which songs are my favorite, because they all kind of sound the same.  Songs that stand out are "Fineshrine", "Amenamy", "Obedear", and "Lofticries".  (I know - unusual, yet pleasant song titles.)  My favorite song, by far,  is "Belispeak".  They have also released a single called "Belispeak II", which is essentially a reprisal of the song with rapper Danny Brown.  It's great.

There is nothing mainstream about this album, but it is a jewel.  If you like electronica, and if you like original music, then check this selection out.  It is worth it.