Lately, I have the song “Begin Again” stuck in my head. It’s fitting as Spring recently arrived, and Spring is of course the time for renewal and starting over. Also, we have had a series of eclipses this month and those also will bring about change and the possiiblity of beginning again to almost everyone in some area of their life.

However, the real reason I can’t get the song out of my head is because I attended the electronica music festival BUKU in New Orleans, and one of the reasons was to see Purity Ring. Since the debut of their album “Shrines”, I have been hoping they would release another album just as good, and with “Another Eternity” they have. Their performance live, was simply amazing, from the lights, visuals, and most importantly the music.

Purity Ring has a way of speaking to the soul and finding expression to emotions that are often not expressed in more pop-like electronica bands. Going to a show feels almost like a religious experience, as does listening to their music. It puts you in a kind of trance like state that many hours of meditation or yoga might.

While “Bodyache” and “Begin Again” might be my favorite songs, the whole album has a continuity and flow that I think has recently been lost for a lot of musical artists. Before Spotify, and other streaming, before CDs, you would buy a casette tape and have to listen to an album sequentially, and the album, if it was any good, was more than just individual songs released to get a hit single. Purity Ring has begun to restore and coherency and integrity to the songs of the Millennial generation. I hope they continue to create albums that contain as great a flow and integrity to their songs as both “Shrines” and “Another Eternity.” They have started another cycle that is beginning again.