Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Purity Ring, Another Latter Day 4AD Impurity

Still trying to build a 2.0 version of the reputation they earned in the mid 80s through mid 90s for nurturing unique and often counter mainstream artists, 4AD records offers us this band - one of their newer acquisitions - Purity Ring.  Their debut release entitled Shrines.

The packaging has all the finesse and intrigue that would normally suggest the creative integrity of a bonfide 4AD act, but that's kind of the one thing the label decided to hold onto when they began the process of surgically altering their once starving artist meets designer brand aesthetic. And it's blatantly obvious that when they signed Purity Ring, someone if not everyone, at the flailing label, had their fingers crossed that this band would be a harbinger for 4AD's reclamation of former glory.

Careful consideration given: nothing in 4AD's early catalog immediately made a gigantic impact commercially. Dead Can Dance's later famed debut was likely originally seen as apocryphal, but promising. His Name Is Alive's Livonia took a lot of added structure at the hands of label founder and former owner Ivo Watts Russell, along with This Mortal Coil bandmate John Fryer to make it into something digestable.  Back in those days record labels took a few more risks, granted - but when you look at 4AD's illustrious back catalog, arguably none took more risks than they did.

So, what's the deal here anyway - is this a write up on Purity Ring or 4AD? The answer is yes. 4AD seeks to further Purity Ring, because they are under the impression that Purity Ring will be their salvation. Just like they think/thought Scott Walker would [yeah - this guy recorded banal and benign Sinatra-esque albums in the late 60s through 80s, and someone at the label thought they could morph him into an undiscovered adversary to David Bowie or something].  Oh, and Gang Gang Dance?  Seriously?? Dead Can Dance... Gang Gang Dance. Completely unrelated artists and genres, but "coincidentally" the 4AD label is the only common denominator between them?  I'll eat crow if
someone in the marketing department there couldn't sincerely admit that they weren't banking on word-of-mouth popularity garnering sales by mistaken association, i.e. "Gang Gang Dance... hmm, I've heard a lot people talking about them."  No, dummy, your friends were talking about DEAD CAN DANCE. No one is particularly interested in Gang Gang Dance.

Alright, so finally with all that pent up frustration aside, now here's the parts about Purity Ring as a band:  they are possibly onto something, and they are okay. In their place. But their place is not 4AD. Portmanteau song titles and sparsely rendered emo-hipster album art get them in the door for sure, but the "fabric of their fiber" [I totally stole that phrase from Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels - but it worked, so get up off me] is where the subterfuge gets called out, because it remains to be seen. 

The opening track "Crawlersout" sets the tone for the length and breadth of the album, so if it's as far as you get, you could probably guess at the rest. In fact, little separates the songs on this album from track to track. You could conceivably walk into any city club that prides itself on a dubstep playlist, hear this album from start to finish sequentially, and miss it entirely. It just bleeds into the environment in that sense, save for the occasional idiosyncratic lyrics, where cutesy voiced primary vocalist Megan James will mention a poke to her ribs ["fineshrine"], or her little belly ["belispeak"].  This puts a fine point on the submission that Shrines is atmospherically serving to, as example, the horny club goer sort; and once more the wonder of "since when has that ever been a 4AD thing?" Sexy is sexy, but what made 4AD's historical roster so was the company it fostered and went on to keep, not the company it sought after.  The label made itself a design for commercializing creativity while managing to more strongly maintain the actual creative part. Bands like Purity Ring are more trying to put a creative spin on commercialism. And that's not necessarily wrong, but - say it with me - it's not the kind of thing the 4AD audience embraces. 

Serving the unique aspect, however, is the instrumental half of Purity Ring, Corin Roddick. Using mostly a custom built hanging light and electronic sound and beat-making contraption, coupled with self-tailored stage attire, the band's live performances at least offer some manner of curiosity. Then again, right when one might start to give them credit, they perform covers of songs by Soulja Boy and release a remix of Lady Gaga's "Applause". The former in February of this year garnered such an intense reaction from the band's fan base that it reportedly inundated their web server with download requests, temporarily downing it.  It's disappointing it wasn't one of their original compositions... being on the 4AD label and all.  Certainly it was the label's penchant to promote artists who were very successful at commercializing what already was commercialized, right?.... oh. wait. That wasn't it at all. 

The fact that Purity Ring is on 4AD is not their fault, regardless of how the theme of this write up might point the blame that way; and all in all, the band is not unlistenable and not totally unenjoyable. They are uninteresting, and they are vapid - and in their fleeting finer moments, they could maybe - just maybe - come off like a less edgy echo of Portishead, but at least they're not something you couldn't put on to provide an easily ignorable forty minute stream of background muzak... while you're at the club, making out with someone who would really rather be listening to Dead Can Dance



No comments:

Post a Comment