Purity Ring

Knitting together R&B melancholy with dubstep euphoria and huge, glistening, synth-pop production, Canadian duo Purity Ring billed their sound as "future pop" when they started out in 2010 and have gone on to work with Katy Perry, Danny Brown and Chance the Rapper. As enthusiastic teenage music fans in the cold Northern city of Edmonton, Corin Roddick was playing drums in DIY rock bands and Megan James was performing her own keyboard songs when they met at sweaty, basement gigs around town. They played together in indie outfit Born Gold but Roddick soon began creating ambient, electronic pieces and persuaded James to add vocals to the project. The online buzz around the group grew when debut single “Ungirthed” was championed by Pitchfork and their shimmering synth melodies, woozy sub-bass throbs and James's sugary, childlike vocals were further refined on popular early tracks “Belispeak” and “Obedear”. Amid the dreamy, dancefloor swell, there was a darker, witchier edge to some of James's bittersweet tales on debut album Shines in 2012, and the pair went on to be featured on tracks by rapper Danny Brown and experimental composer Jon Hopkins. When they returned in 2015, they reached number 26 on the Billboard 200 with second album Another Eternity, and Roddick co-wrote three songs on Katy Perry's chart-topping album Witness in 2017. The group resurfaced the same year with the non-album offering “Asino”, a piano-led cut about solitude, and were sampled on Playboi Carti and Bryson Tiller’s 2018 collaboration “Fell In Luv” before returning proper in 2020 with their third LP, Womb. Despite positive reviews, it only reached #195 in the US album charts. The duo concluded 2020 with a remix of Deftones’ “Knife Prty”, featured on the 20th anniversary reissue of the band’s iconic album White Pony.

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