Upon my arrival at Mohawk Place a young woman of fair complexion wearing a pouffy skirt and speckled face-paint, passed under my shoulder and through the threshold. I sharply remarked to my homeboys “What’s with the face-paint?” Little did I know that young woman, the lead singer of the two-piece buzz band Purity Ring was about to haunt me with her presence on stage and her beautiful voice.
Hailing from Canada, the duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick have become a hot topic. Presented with the chance to see them in Buffalo this past Tuesday at Mohawk place, my friends and I took the bait. Suckered we were not, because the performance albeit only seven songs, which the band respectfully admitted was all they had, was utterly epic. Certainly helping that is the transcendent sound that is produced by James’ reverberated on-pitch vocals laid over glitchy chill-step melodies and heavy muted bass.
The scene was electric. Purity Ring took the stage to the illusion of a circus big-top back drop lit poorly from behind with floor lights creating a dark ambience; broken, by a mobile weathered work light attached to a tall holster which James’ disengaged and often flailed in her hand opposite the mic, sporadically lighting the stage. Eventually light revealed a big bass drum from a marching band and Roddick standing behind a customized instrument constructed of copper pipes branching out into extremities that he struck with what appeared to be wooden mallets. Each arm produced its own sound and each arm had coordinated electric lights on the tips. It was almost like a free-standing electric marimba with the capability of one octave at a time, but what do I know, it was really dark. When I asked them afterwards what it was, they dubbed it the “Binary.” Pretty cool eh?
Atmospherically the show played out so cool. Waves of certain relaxed energy were produced by each song, and the band keenly took no time between them. Only in brief silences could three or four digital SLR’s could be heard excitedly clicking away in the dark, and mirroring the eyeballs of about thirty to forty people in-the-know, glued to the performance.
High-marks to Purity Ring for helping Buffalo catch their buzz. They will now tour across America likely snowballing and growing on the road to more hip places.
Photos by Nathan Cramer
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