[DARK INDIETRONICA/VERSUS] Purity Ring – “Push Pull” (Kavi vs Saam Idelji-Tehrani Dual Review)

[DARK INDIETRONICA/VERSUS] Purity Ring – “Push Pull” (Kavi vs Saam Idelji-Tehrani Dual Review)

[DARK INDIETRONICA/VERSUS] Purity Ring – “Push Pull” (Kavi vs Saam Idelji-Tehrani Dual Review)

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PurityRing1
Here at The Sights and Sounds we don’t always agree on music. Just like you and your friends. Yeah, sometimes we fight, sometimes it’s a whole world of Marvel vs. Capcom in our crew page forum as we go at it over music. Lovingly, of course. We feel strongly about music and we know you do too. So that’s why we bring you Versus, a periodic series featuring two of our writers giving opposing takes on a track. This time up? Our senior editor, Kavi, and  our British music correspondent Saam Idelji-Tehrani, who also writes for The Line of Best Fit.  The writers will give a ‘nay’ (negative) or a ‘yay’ positive review and rank the song on scale of 1-10.  And don’t worry, we aren’t turning into Pitchfork. 

VERSUS: PURITY  RING ” PUSH PULL”

KAVI vs SAAM

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NAY LEVEL: 2/10

KAVI: Neutered. As if Megan’s lady balls of dark inventive glory suddenly found Dancing With Stars titillating. It’s like CHVRCHES soaked in box wine and Ambien at a Mary Kay party. All the married ladies got a ring on it, and now want to share Purity Ring with their children. It’s like all those partygoers went and fucked in their mom jeans at Bonnaroo and then those mom jeans became infested with crabs and they wanted to shave away all their shame. ‘Push Pull’ lacks even the inconsequential pubes of what makes a Purity Ring track, a great, fucking Purity Ring track.

Straightup, straightforward, a list of the song’s sins: banal production (sparse without drama), the lyrical structure is repetitive following a super traditional –almost mainstream–determining order of stanza/ chorus/ stanza/ bridge/ stanza/ chorus, and  the poetry of the stanzas can’t even  be bothered to save the chorus from drowning in its dull directness. Speaking of directness, the title is the first from Purity Ring that leaves nothing else to imagine.

Let’s go to that last point, because I think it’s central to what went wrong here. Think of any song from their debut LP Shrines and the title is just a clever amalgamation of all the feeling contained there within. Portmanteaus like Obedear  (Oh, but dear), Lofticries ( lofty cries), and Belispeak (belly speak)  housed novel new worlds for you to place your experiences in without ever crowding out the original intent by the musicians.  Danny Brown could reimagine Belispeak as that craving hunger to succeed, and in Lofticries I could simultaneously experience the crushing defeat of a  lover in a break up smashing my legs with sledgehammers vis a vis their words and the euphoria of the  first time they lifted them over my head.  ‘Push Pull does none of that. What does Push Pull mean? Think of the most obvious explanation. I’ll give you, 1, 2,…see, you got it already. Being literal? Hooray. That turns me on. Not.

What made Shrines’ songs valuable was that they were cross sections of a moment of life. They were incomplete pictures. Vignettes of a life you have no fucking clue about. And that’s what gave them their power: here you are, dropped into all of this drama, and you have to navigate your way through it. And the only way you know how to–the only way you really can–is to deal with your own shit.  Let’s just mourn the trendsetting drama that was Shrines production as well:  those songs stuck with you. The musicianship slashed your ribs like a vicious liposuction and filled in the space between your heart, the gut that guides you, and the caverns you run, breathe with—all with their meaty feelings.

If this is ‘on trend’, as I see used by apologists for the band, I’d rather eat glass than be cool. And if life in the new Purity Ring world is generic pop boredom sure to really upset no one–count me out. This shit is soporific.  And I think a hundred pop acts in the waiting could have made it happen. Which is a shame, since Shrines will always go down as one of the best dark indietronica records ever.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiV0RN0mPSk]
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YAY LEVEL: 8.2/10 (Because Kavi made the Pitchfork joke)

SAAM: Two years have nearly passed since Purity Ring released their excellent début record Shrines, an album that saw the band temper an array of electronic wizardry with sugar-sweet vocals and dark lyrical content, to create a unique musical landscape – one which haunted, as much as delighted the listener. The thing is however, when you strike big on the first attempt, the second attempt becomes ever tougher. Of course there are a plethora of factors (capturing an artistic essence, new ideas, dynamics in band, complacency etc.) for why this occurs, but the key factor, in my mind, is due to an idea/feeling that is now inextricably linked to the human condition – expectation. The expectation of greatness in particular can become an insufferable burden for artists, while for listeners,  expectation becomes one of the great modulators of emotion, especially when approaching new art by an artist you have so longer for. That expectation and modulation of emotion came truly into effect upon listening to “Push Pull”, the first taste of Purity Ring’s sophomore record (Title TBA).

Upon the click of the play button, the great cloud of expectation hung over my speakers as the synth calls of “Push Pull” began. I sat and listened. 3minutes 30 passed and then it ended. The cloud of expectation above my speakers turned grey and initially started to rain disappointment. And admittedly like Kavi, I found it hard at first to comprehend what I had heard. I battled within myself to press play again, but then I searched for and found my umbrella, shielded myself from the cloud of expectation and its drops of disappointment and listened again. And then again. And then again. Above my speakers the cloud began to pass as “Push Pull” clicked, to reveal blissful and radiant light.

While not as immediate as some of the tracks found on Shrines, “Push Pull” features subtle intricacies that entice and move the listener through a weightless voyage (not of indifference, mind) much like the visual for the track. Those intricacies however do not lie within the beat-work, which in turn comprises of a skeletal, stop-start, beaten snare/bass-drum combo, but lie within the arpeggiated synthesisers. Synth motifs effortlessly move between time signatures and velocities in such a way that like the title of the track suggests, pushes and pulls the listener in, while accelerating and decelerating the track. Synth melodies would come and go throughout Shrines but very few share the clever interplay between tempo and dynamics that the synth work on “Push Pull” demonstrates. Alongside dense and textured synths and mystical/sexual lyrics, Purity Ring have created an immersive track that fully rewards after repeated listens.

Finally, its move towards a more traditional pop structure also hints at a potentially more collaborative approach to the new record – for as the legend goes, Corin produced much of the Shrines record before Megan wove her words between the beats

For now however, the weather over my speakers has cleared, and I have something (semi-) tangible to look forward to in 2015.

 

 

 

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Kavi Senior Editor. Currently based in Bangkok. I review dark indietronica/pop with my signature style of delving into the sexuality, sensuality and emotionality of every song. If you'd like me to premiere your track, contact me at the email below or at soundcloud.com/discordbeing