Purple Pilgrims have announced the release of their third album, Given to the Night, out on the 27th November via Flying Nun Records.
Truths and secrets often reveal themselves at night, under the freedom of shadowy darkness, away from prying eyes. In creating Given to the Night, sisters Valentine and Clementine Nixon have crafted a world that drifts through the in-between: between dream and reality, between day and night and the undefined, and ultimately a world that embraces the discomfort of being untethered. A process that follows simplicity and intuition rather than pre-determined narratives. “We recorded songs as they appeared, which sometimes felt like catching light. Before we realised it we had a record”, the duo explain.
The first single, ‘Innocence Lost’, is out today alongside a brand new visualiser. The new track is a dreamy example of the duo’s signature kaleidoscopic sound. Check it out below:
Purple Pilgrims – Innocence Lost (Visualiser)
While making the new record Given to the Night, Valentine and Clementine gently pushed away from the world- deleted social media, retreated into the trees of their native New Zealand – and only invited a couple of people in during the recording process. From that space, the album came together in an eerily easeful way.
There is a dream-like drift and sonic timelessness to the the record, as reflected in its nocturnal title, which can be read in two ways:
“Being taken by, or being inclined towards nighttime, preferring its blurry cloak of shadows to the harsh light of day; or giving oneself up to night, in sacrifice, letting go of fear and melting into the darkness.”
Written during a time of personal transition there was “a sense of finding the light in the shadow” they add. Guitar lines float, synth lines entwine, tapes hiss and vocals stream creating a kaleidoscopic montage of transient memories and emotions. A spectrum of feelings arise – isolation and joy, insomnia and manic highs, confusion and fleeting clarity, grief and healings. In the record, these feelings all merge and fade into one another in a nonlinear manner, as life tends to do; creating something deeply human that simultaneously gestures towards the transcendental.
Purple Pilgrims
Given to the Night
Given to the Night out 27 November via Flying Nun Records
Pre-Order/Pre-Save HERE
Tracklist
1. Innocence Lost
2. Outside
3. Look to the Moon
4. Angel (Passing through this Scene)
5. Love Arrived
6. Echo
7. Wherever You Go, There You Are
8. Receive
9. Windows
10. Universal Love
11. Unseen
ABOUT PURPLE PILGRIMS
As Purple Pilgrims, Clementine and Valentine Nixon make music that is at once classic and wholly idiosyncratic. Raised between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the sisters began performing in subterranean gallery spaces and music venues across Hong Kong’s abandoned industrial estates, with sets of experimental noise and futuristic dream-pop.
Over time, and a number of acclaimed cult releases, Purple Pilgrims have refined their song crafting abilities – building worlds of analog texture, tapestries of shimmering guitars and synths, and expansively layered vocals with an unmistakable air of familial telepathy.
Touted as New Zealand’s answer to haze-pop pioneers like Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins – their music is infused with a uniquely Antipodean essence, evident in their collaborations with Flying Nun greats The Chills and Roy Montgomery.
The sisters have headlined tours globally, and alongside the likes of Ariel Pink, Aldous Harding, Gary War, John Maus and Weyes Blood.
