A Look Inside Purity Ring's Live Performances

A long-time favorite of mine and a familiar name to at least a few people in our class, Purity Ring is a great example of innovative DIY performance in electronic music. The two-piece ensemble strives to create a welcoming ambiance for their audience, and breaks the mold of the traditional "laptop" musician. Some of the highlights of their performances include live-processed vocals, DIY MIDI/light controllers, and an array of light fixtures that react to their musical choices. This video highlights some of those aspects, as well as presenting a couple of performance clips from their show at Webster Hall in New York City.

My biggest takeaway from watching this is the idea of continuity in performance. Not only does Purity Ring's live performance maintain a consistent and pleasing ambiance, their debut album, Shrines, effectively utilizes a restrained number of timbres, which gives their entire set aural consistency. It may be difficult for us given that we are more or less sectioning the class into teams in order to work on different pieces, but I think that our performance would benefit by having a couple of core elements (lights, sounds, interfaces, reoccurring melodies or interludes, etc.).