Purgate’s latest release, Leavings, has a simple yet effective formula. Take a short abstract motif, and let it loop for a few minutes.
These motifs, however, are synthesized from melodic fragments, static, distortion, and other unusual features. And the looping varies each of them slightly across iterations.
Purgate is Frederic Arbour, also known as the label head for Cyclic Law. Thus, he is intimately familiar with dark ambient, industrial, and adjacent genres of music. His efforts on this album only provide a respectful nod toward those established forms before heading out in new directions.
‘Cinders’ opens the album with shards of airy, floating synth grounded by a pulsing rhythm. ‘Ashes’ is even more focused on repeating,..