In the five years that they’ve been active, it sometimes seems as if Purelink are dissolving right before our eyes. They’ve never again released anything quite as corporeal or propulsive as their debut EP, which paired visceral dub techno with rolling drum’n’bass.
On their 2023 debut album, Signs, glitchy drums crackled in a pastel haze, and last year’s Faith was even more ethereal; the trio’s individual identities melted together under cover of amorphous arrangements that suggested fogbanks, blizzards, and other zero-visibility conditions.
Anyone who has seen Purelink live, however, knows how much physical heft they’re capable of conjuring — a bold, bassy throb that sets bodies in motion even in the absence of obvious…
Tag Archive: Purelink
Are Brooklyn’s Purelink a boy band or a jam band? Well, they’re neither; they’re three former Chicagoans making ambient music in the Y2K-era clicks + cuts tradition, yet those faintly disingenuous tags actually say a lot about what sets them apart from their forebears. Guys like Oval, Pole, Jan Jelinek and Vladislav Delay carried themselves with modesty, reserve, and dry Northern European humor; they didn’t seem like people you’d necessarily want to have a beer with. Purelink, meanwhile, are the kind of band you’d want to be in: three 30-year-olds with impeccable music taste and even better networking skills, driving south every year to link up with artists like Ulla and Huerco S. at Kansas City’s C- parties.
This sense of eagerness and irrepressible youth,…