Since emerging in the early 2010s, the electronic duo Purity Ring have made a lasting impact on the electronic pop landscape, building a world all their own with immersive self-produced albums and designing groundbreaking visual live show experiences.
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Our American Songwriter Membership caught up with Purity Ring ahead of the release of their new self-titled fourth album, which marks the beginning of a bold new chapter. With a sound that shifts their focus from the physical to the fantastical. Inspired by games like Nier Automata and Final Fantasy X, they’ve crafted a concept album that serves as the soundtrack to an imagined role-playing game.
We asked Purity Ring’s MJ to give us a peak into what drives their creative endeavors. Check it out:
a song without feeling in the world of purity ring doesn’t make it over the finish line.
and so when we sit down to write a song, wherever we are, it starts with that. it’s the first goal and the last. there are times where we take a few turns and the feeling is lost — that’s when we change course completely and salvage a song for parts, take a few days to shake it off, then come back and try again. if a song we’re excited about at first becomes less exciting, there is always more, and we can count on that if nothing else.
each song is a journey unto itself, and every song we write feels new. time is also a magical ingredient, time itself will ruminate on a sound and upon returning to it, it seems changed, aged, fermented, developed or underdone. time – if you have it – is often a good solution to a problem, because it will reveal truths you couldn’t see before. time can seem like a trick but it is really a gift when it comes to finding the truth about a song. it can also make an old idea feel good again.
in country music they say a song is three chords and the truth. in other words – a feeling:) so really, a song can be anything at all – it can be one note droning along, there could be a melody or a synth over it. every element you add builds it into something more and changes it’s course but at it’s root it will be the thing you started with. a sound, three chords, two chords, every step of the way, i would argue it is still A FEELING. this usually translates in the form of a melody, although a set of chords can also be a feeling of their own accord. any one sound can create a feeling, and that in truth is all you need to make a song.
however, for some reason – when we hear a human voice singing – maybe it’s empathy or an instinctual recognition – we are drawn to it. it’s one of the most familiar sounds yet it always sounds slightly alien and given the right context, we can’t look away. as if a voice in and of itself is asking you to listen – to take it in, to inhabit it. there are many examples of songs throughout history that either started without chords, or the chords have fallen away from them – old folk songs , lullabies or jingles. although you could argue that a melody is made up of chords too but i’m getting too far into how there are no rules. which is why feelings are everything, so back to them.
may i define a few simple feelings in case you need some ideas for writing songs – here’s a list of feels with associated examples. there are so many more feelings than this:
• anger – “wake up” by rage against the machine
• love – “begin again” by purity ring 😉
• yearning – “the boxer” by simon and garfunkel
• joy – “kiss” by prince
• bliss – “heaven” by dj sammy
• undefined feelings (basically ALL trance), related to bliss, this could be an entire 1k word article unto itself. – ariana grande’s “no tears left to cry” or “come down to us” by burial.
i will also add here that a chord progression can be so full of feelings!! for example, I-iii-vi-iii is one of many progressions i will instantly have ideas for singing over, every time.
before purity ring, before 2011, i would spend days sewing and listening to burial, efterklang, explosions in the sky or four tet and i would sing my own parts. for years before purity ring began i loved singing over anything, or over silence even. there is a lot in silence.
when we write a song, corin sends me a beat and it’s remarkable what it can shift for me, it’s like a beat is the question and i have to find the right answer. moving helps. the best way to write is walking so i’ll take something to record with and i’ll walk anywhere and write as many parts as i can, or fall into one part and refine it. everything is moving and melodies like walking so it only makes sense.
other times i’ll flip through my recent journals, that can get frustrating so i move on to books of poetry, searching for topics or a few words that dig in me, or can inspire something altogether different. if that doesn’t work i’ll read a book that gives me a lot to chew on emotionally, or something that spurs me into a feeling that i have a lot of thoughts about. The journal sometimes works that way, but other times it’s the words of kelly hayes and mariame kaba in ‘let this radicalize you’ or vicky osterweil’s ‘in defense of looting’ or ‘the wretched of the earth’ by frantz fanon.
make beauty first, impressions will come last.
i’m not here to impress anyone, i’m here to imbue feelings. and with what corin offers, i want to draw out the feelings of a piece of wordless music with my poetry and create a total environment that has imagery, color, a place we can sit for 3 minutes with our eyes closed. purity ring is trying to make a beautiful place you can hopefully enter into and feel whatever you need to for those few minutes and then walk away with a bit of a different light on you, a refraction or a refocussing of your thoughts. i hope our environments follow you like a ghost through your days. and i hope they help you listen to everything a little closer, hear a little more. i hope they confuse you into a tiny form of enlightenment. through vibrations and words, i hope they can open little portals in your daily life that you can go back to in your minds. i’d like to haunt you like an ancestor.
i believe feelings are the only way humans can truly relate and so i hope you can feel me. that is all i want out of making music, is to give you a feeling, no matter what it is, whether you understand me or not. because at the root of all things good, is a feeling and when it comes to you the listener, that’s where i’d like to reach you.
-mj
(Purity Ring)
Purity Ring’s MJ provided this guest post for the American Songwriter Membership. Become A Member and get exclusive content, including access to the songwriters behind hit songs by Ed Sheeran, Bonnie Raitt, Morgan Wallen, Guns N’ Roses, and more; plus special events, song feedback, giveaways, tips, and a community of songwriters and music lovers!
Featured Photo via Yuniverse
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