Through our eyes
We Are Not Talking About Purity Ring Enough.
Don’t Miss the show
Written By Emily Payton
Mar 32, 2026
We Are Not Talking About Purity Ring Enough.
Always a spectacle, Canadian electronic duo Purity Ring showed out in Atlanta’s famous Buckhead Theatre, upping my personal caliber of music experiences with a performance to the likes I’ve never seen before.
Let’s back up, because WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT PURITY RING ENOUGH.
In 2011, these two took to the stage beats, dreams, and PVC pipe. And they stole our hearts.
Video of early set (property of Chelsea V. Peacock)
Meet MJ, the fallen poet angel from your dreams with creepily cute lyrics that dance in metaphors. And Corin, the multifaceted unsung curator, playing with the intersection of technology and sick beats. Together the two craft, let me say that again, CRAFT a transcendent, cosmic, listening experience, full of original costuming, lighting visualizers, and specially designed musical instruments…and we call it a concert.
"if I could ‘cut open my sternum and pull my little ribs around’ them, I would. "
Throughout the years Purity Ring found ways to level up each tour. Some personal favorites of mine were the Another Eternity tour’s custom-made, crystal drum set and light-up cubic beaded curtain reverberating the music through it. Also shout out to the giant baby doll lampdress MJ made for the Womb tour. Yes, Queen can make her own clothes and King is an engineering genius. Fast forward 15 years, and the PVC pipe is exchanged for 2 rows of LED fans, projection mapping, and a giant background screen to add those silhouettes.
I’ve been attending Purity Ring shows since 2013. This was my 5th PR show. 3rd tour. And if I could “cut open my sternum and pull my little ribs around” them, I would.
The A Place of My Own Tour is an experience best viewed live. And with 2026 tour dates announced, you do not want to miss this show.
Purity Ring has surrounded themselves with a team of creatives that help mold the mood they offer to their audience. They collaborate with their artists like opener yuniVERSE, a hyper-electronic princess also serving as tour photographer and hair & makeup for the “the long night” music video. And Brett Bolton, the audio visual artist and tech wiz behind Purity Ring’s latest stage production.
“The small warm light on her mic, illuminates her eyes piercing over her decorated mask…”
When I first saw photos of the A Place of My Own tour, I couldn’t wrap my head around how the light visualizer was working. Surely it must be in post production, right? That’s not actually happening in the show…right? Wrong.
Let’s set the stage. Literally. Upstage, images are projected onto a screen that silhouette MJ on a riser. Her puffy purple pants and our favorite version of her “sadness jacket” create beautiful stage pictures as she dances in shadow. The use of infrared capture allowed for real time assets to be displayed on the background screen and used throughout the show. The small warm light on her mic, illuminates her eyes piercing over her decorated mask they requested people wear for safety.
In front of her is Corin’s domain, surrounded by his synth drum pad and various midi controllers. But the real star of the stage production is the lighting visualizers unlike any show you’ve ever witnessed. Separating both MJ & Corin, as well as Corin & the audience are two rows of four spinning LED fans. The background screen’s visual elements interact with the trail of particles coming from Corin’s drum pad creating a 3D ephemeral ether.
“I was immediately on board when Corin showed me his initial idea to have a bunch of massive LED fans onstage.”
At first, I assumed Corin was solely behind the lighting engineering but another tag kept popping up on their socials, @BrettBolton. Doing my research for the article, I noticed Bolton is an audio visual artist, meaning he plays music and visuals simultaneously. Bolton’s AV tech-art is a look into the beautiful future of stage production. You’ve probably seen this tech in airports for safety signs but Bolton’s use of it provided the ultimate emotive environment Purity Ring provides their audience.
Bolton signed on to the project after Corin sketched out the idea and presented it to him.
Brett Bolton:
“I was immediately on board when Corin showed me his initial idea to have a bunch of massive LED fans onstage. It took us a while and multiple setup iterations to sort out the best pixel map and hardware setup… but we were pretty confident we could make it work. Everything was “in theory” until we got everything in one room and connected for the first time during tech rehearsals. We got so excited when the fans all started to spin up and work as we hoped for the first time. Such a relief. Designing the visuals was the fun and easy part from then on.”
The vision involved infrared capture, projection mapping, and a lot passion. Corin’s ambitious idea fueled Bolton’s inspiration for the tour, in collaboration with 3D artist Steve Teeps and the album artwork creator, Mike Sunday. After a series of trial and error events, the creative team were able to craft a one-of-kind show.
Corin’s drum pad triggers the foreground fans in realtime generating projection mapped visuals that burst through the stage. Corin is able to control the visuals through Ableton via open sound control (OSC). These visuals were generated by Bolton in Notch, a program designed for live 3D graphics for an interactive experience. And boy did I interact. Suddenly in a black hole or deep in the stars, I couldn’t look away and almost forgot to take photos.
We knew MJ and Corin were an explosive duo (that again, we are not talking about enough) but who knew they were artistic alchemists, introducing us to visionaries like Brett Bolton and experiences that are best felt live.
The handmade fashion, the engineered design, the sweet disturbed lyrics and the anime inspired production of this last album have me debating a 6th show.
Without a doubt, Purity Ring will make this die hard fan “feel this for the rest of her life. I’d build a fineshrine for you, PR.
Don’t miss this show.