A few weeks before chatting with Purity Ring’s Megan James and Corin Roddick, they’d already soft-launched their rebirth. After 15 years of making music together, they released the two-part single “Many Lives” and “Part II” back in June alongside an animated visual. In the clips, the pair stand on the edge of a new world, clad in armor-like garments and large boots. James carries a flaming spear, wears a giant key necklace, and dons a spiked halo; Roddick is hooded with a big-ass backpack, sword, and chain with a skull key. These new looks came together with animators Mike Sunday and Steve Teeps, who aided Purity Ring in building their own RPG universe, which would eventually become a gateway to their latest project: a self-titled fourth album they’re announcing today that’s out on September 26.
The visual element accompanying Purity Ring’s portal-hopping electronic music has always been critical. Normally, that comes together after the music is finished entirely. Their newest album was different, as they began building a world with Sunday early on in the process. “The two things built up in a parallel way and influenced each other in a different way that we’ve never had happen before,” Roddick shares. The RPG concept came together with James and Roddick figuring out a shared history predating the band. “There’s so much that we have in common that we’ve never actually brought into Purity Ring deliberately,” James explains. “At the same time, making a Purity Ring record has always been about making a world. We have something more tactile that we can make this about: ‘Let’s replay these games from our past.’ I think it was just really easy to sort of blend ourselves into something that already existed, but that we could make exist in our own way.”
Purity Ring is charged by the immersive nostalgia of games like Final Fantasy X and Kingdom of Hearts, standing as an impressive ode to video game soundtrack history. Sublime compositions featuring classical guitar and lustrine piano melodies are woven between palpitating breakbeats and drum ’n’ bass rhythms. Their soundtrack music makes you feel the console coming to life with opening credits (“Relict”), instrumentally lush save screen checkpoints (“Mistral”), and emotional side quests (“Memory Ruins”) before entering a moment of reflection prior to the major battle (“The Long Night”). Despite the otherworldly veil that hangs over the record, James emphasizes this drawn-up reality isn’t meant to be far out of reach. “I really hope people see this as something that feels more like possibility and essential in this world, not unrealistic or escapist dreaming. This is something that can exist.”
Listen to their new single “Place of My Own” and check out more from our chat below.
It’s interesting thinking about fantasy and the line between reality and a different world. How does that work if there are some similarities between the two?
Megan James: You’re touching on something that I’ve actually thought about a lot. It’s really important not to view this as an escapist fantasy. Playing a game is fun and a way to tap out for a bit and experience something that isn’t here. But at the same time, with so many games from our past, I see a lot of parallels with the real world. It’s always a group of friends who are fighting the empire or whatever. I don’t see this as an escape from our world, and from what I do in this band. I’m imagining a better world, one that I hope exists one day. One that I would love to live in, and I understand that it takes work to build that.
Corin Roddick: I feel like all the best fantasy stories are analogs for things that people are up against in the real world.
MJ: That’s one of the reasons it makes sense to have Corin and I presented as characters. It’s sort of like a touch point of the reality of our existence. It’s not somewhere else—it’s here, still.
“I don’t see this as an escape from our world, and from what I do in this band. I’m imagining a better world, one that I hope exists one day.” — Megan James
Was that why it’s presented as a self-titled album?
CR: We’ve been a band for 15 years now; it feels like there was kind of a hard break after those first three albums. The process of making this album felt like we were jumping into a blank slate, which I hadn’t had that feeling in a very, very long time. The self-titled thing—it wasn’t an intention from the beginning, but as it all started to come together with the visuals and the track listing and everything, it was the only thing that felt right.
MJ: We are really excited about this record, and that’s another reason we were like, “OK, this can be the self-titled one.” Looking back on what we’ve done, we’re of course so proud of that work, but this record feels expansive for us.
CR: I’ve never really known what to think of self-titled albums. It’s obvious when someone puts out their first album and it’s self-titled. That makes sense. But when it’s later in a discography, are you supposed to think that this is the true artist now? That kind of thing has confused me in the past, but now that we’re making our own self-titled album, I feel like I understand it in a way that I hadn’t before.
What were some of the moments on this album that maybe Purity Ring from 15 years ago would have never expected?
CR: For me, a big one was the drum ’n’ bass, breakbeat rhythms—music that I listened to in high school. I was really into Venetian Snares and things like that. That influence never made it into the music that I made. I always stuck to more hip-hop-influenced rhythms, like these big expansive halftime beats. That’s mostly what our first three albums are based around. This time, working with these higher tempos and more frantic drum beats, it changed everything from a production side of figuring out how to fit music around those beats. There’s not nearly as much space to put things. That was something that was very refreshing and forced me to think about things in a different way. There’s a lot of classical guitar on the record. Ten years ago, if you told me that we were going to have classical guitar prominently featured on almost every song on an album, I’d be like, “That’s the craziest thing.”
MJ: We had an unspoken rule [about guitars], even. And then there were a couple times, Corin, where you’d be like, “I don’t know, I tried this guitar…” and I’d always be like, “No” [laughs].
CR: We were very anti-guitar when we started the band [laughs].
MJ: I don’t even know why! I think it just didn’t fit into Purity Ring—or we thought that. I think there’s a lot of avenues that opened up on this record. We’ve been making music for 15 years. We aren’t on a label where there are any deadlines or demands, we just grew into this place we’re in now. We’re musicians, this is what we do, and we’re better at it than we’ve ever been.
“Ten years ago, if you told me that we were going to have classical guitar prominently featured on almost every song on an album, I’d be like, ‘That’s the craziest thing.’” — Corin Roddick
I was wondering what the relationship was between the Graves EP and this album. The way that EP ends with the piano-led “Xsalt” feels like you’re ready to explore more.
CR: We hadn’t started anything for this current album when we were working on Graves. That EP was definitely made with the intention that it was sort of a refresher. The song “Graves” itself was from eight or nine years before we put the EP out. Some other songs were leftover ideas from our third album. Some were new ideas from around that time. It felt like this last little hurrah of all that stuff to get off our chest. That ambient piano piece—I think at the time we didn’t really have the intention of that leading into this, because we didn’t know what we were going to make next. But in hindsight, it definitely was a palate cleanser for what comes next.
Do you envision a specific journey for the listener with these characters?
MJ: At this point, especially with the track record of people experiencing our songs, it’s gonna be whatever they want it to be. Because we have a sense of place where the album exists—and it’s more of a physical representation rather than purely metaphorical—there’s a lot more for us to talk about. As soon as you put something into the world, it’s up for interpretation, and it’s not up to you. People understand themselves through other people’s words. And that’s ended up being one of my favorite things about putting out music: “Do what you want with this, it’s yours to experience and enjoy.”
CR: We’re giving a lot more than we have in the past in terms of an experience around the record, so I think we can’t be too specific about it. We have to find that middle ground where people can make it up for themselves as they go. But the vessel is there.
“We’ve been making music for 15 years... We just grew into this place we’re in now. We’re musicians, this is what we do, and we’re better at it than we’ve ever been.” — Megan James
I think that’s why it’s interesting with the RPG element: you can choose your own adventure, essentially. The game isn’t gonna be played the same way by everyone.
MJ: But this is the thing, too: When you’re playing a game, you always feel like you’re making the decisions, like they’re yours when usually they’re not. Maybe in that sense that’s a little bit closer to what we’re doing, too [laughs].
CR: Yeah, we’re more of a guide.
When you talk about the project with each other, is there a name for this world?
CR: We just call it “the record.” We haven’t actually named the world. I feel like If we’d named the album, that would’ve been [the name] for the world, but because it’s a self-titled album, it’s just the world for the album.
MJ: But maybe this world will live on in whatever we do next, in some form. We don’t know. It’s the beginning of a new era.
CR: There’s more to discover. FL
