Purelink: Together Is the New Alone

The odds of making your ambient album a hit are slim. Beyond the unassuming nature of a lot of the music, there’s also a staggering amount of it being released as we roll through the 2020s. Symptomatic of the lockdown years, and spurred on by Bandcamp autonomy, there’s an internet-rooted tangle of labels and artists it would take a lifetime to catch up on. Purelink could be considered poster boys for this phenomenon – Kiernan Laveaux called them “the chillout room Backstreet Boys” for one thing – with some of the members’ earliest released work arriving in 2021 as a 43-track digital compilation called  Pandemic Cuts.

So far, so nu-ambient, but the release of Signs has cut through the fug of digi-only abundance to become a record on everyone’s lips. Glowing reviews and end-of-year praise have rained down on the Brooklyn-via-Chicago trio’s debut album since it came out in September, garnering the sort of attention rarely afforded to the kind of music they make.

Before Purelink began in earnest, old friends Ben Paulson and Tommy Paslaski recorded respectively as Kindtree and Concave Reflection. It was Paslaski who put together the aforementioned Pandemic Cuts with reams of his solo experiments, as well as his collaborations with Paulson as All Light Hits U, or ALHU. Around 2019, they got to know Akeem Asani, who was already DJing and producing leftfield club beats as Millia. As the three bonded over the revelations of Rhythm & Sound and other such chillout touchstones, they realised there might be creative potential in fusing together their respective sensibilities.

It’s late 2023 when Purelink dial in from Paulson and Paslaski’s Bed-Stuy apartment. The three haven’t been living in New York for long, and they’re candid about their motivation for moving cities. “Before the pandemic, we were all going to a bunch of DIY house shows in Chicago and that was thriving,” recalls Paulson, “but it dwindled out, and it ended up there were just not many opportunities to play shows.” Asani agrees, but is quick to point out that their hometown has been instrumental in their artistry. “We represent ourselves as a Chicago band,” says Asani, “because the Midwest and Chicago are super important to us, but there’s just more room for growth in New York right now.” Paslaski adds: “The whole 3XL crew has links here, and people from the Midwest and Kansas congregate [in NYC] and do shows.”

The 3XL crew Paslaski is referring to is a network of people and platforms spearheaded by artists like Shy (a.k.a. Special Guest DJ), Ulla Straus and Huerco S who purposefully evade easy definition. On any given release, dub techno ambience and gossamer jungle breaks flirt with ASMR field recordings and illbient flips of nu-metal tropes. It’s a very internet-spirited project, but it also has a real-world nexus in Kansas City, in particular around the C- platform. “The first Purelink DJ set was at a C- event in Kansas City,” Paslaski recalls, “and that’s where we met Brian [Huerco S], Ulla and all those people. We went three years in a row to Kansas for this little ambient convention.”

From the outside looking in, this network of labels and artists is an impenetrable maze of lowercase aliases, cross-pollinating projects, in-jokes and DIY values, all of which flies in the face of modern music industry presentation. The Kansas City summits helped demystify the real people behind the art for Purelink, and their laptop-jammed soundscapes naturally slotted into that postmodern subculture. So how did Signs manage to land in a way that equally worthy albums like Shinetiac’s Not All Who Wander Are Lost or Mu Tate’s They’re With You Always didn’t.

It helps that Signs came out on Peak Oil; a modest label which commands outsized respect thanks to the quality, consistency and consideration of its releases. Sonically, you could argue there’s a lot of overlap between the glitchy, laptop dub processes on Peak Oil and those found on 3XL, but the way the music reaches the world feels very different. “I feel like, especially with the help of the Peak Oil packaging, Signs definitely comes across as a whole project,” explains Asani, “as opposed to just slapping it up on Bandcamp. I love being able to find anything on Bandcamp nowadays, but Peak Oil is able to reach people we couldn’t, who really respect the label and what  it means.”

Beyond the mechanics of the release, there is an energy on Signs which feels distinct even from the earlier Purelink release on Montreal label NAFF, or Paulson and Paslaski’s prior solo endeavours. The wispy chords and filigree glitches can easily cling to the walls as a subtle mood setter, but there’s a low-end presence and rhythmic purpose which pushes the music forward to command your attention. “Ben and I were very much interested in sound design  and making things more loose,”  says Paslaski. “Akeem is much more detailed, and has this really good concept of rhythm and how to structure something to become a composition.”

It makes sense, then, that Asani has a background in percussion. “I’ve been a drummer my whole life, so putting that in my music is very important to me. Bringing that sensibility into the Purelink world is what makes it stand out from other ambient projects,” he smiles. “There’s a lot of focus on rhythm, and Ben and Tommy showed me more about ambient and dub. That, combined with not being able to go to clubs, culminated in our sound.”

Ambient music often lends itself to insular work, but there’s an overarching feeling that Signs is the work of a band feeding into a considered, collaborative sound, rather than one person jamming themselves into the ether. In tandem with the benefit of pooling their respective interests and tastes, Asani, Paulson and Paslaski also needed to learn where to draw back, chip away or make space in the music. “It’s really about giving up ownership, right?” argues Paslaski. “You’re not trying to make sure that ‘this is just as much my track as it is everyone else’s,’ but just letting it be what it becomes by listening to each other.” Paulson concurs, adding that this all-hands approach has, in turn, allowed them to flourish individually as producers. “At the beginning, I think we were more accepting of looser ideas, and as it’s grown, we’ve been more picky and focused on what we all want from the project.”

The ideas which coalesced into Signs were drawn from a Purelink gig at feted US festival Sustain-Release in 2022. After a string of shows that summer, the trio were able to pool their strongest live material into an extended three-hour sunrise session. “What’s funny is we were actually playing right after Shy,” warmly recalls Paulson, “and he was playing Skrillex! And we’re about to play this really long, soft set. I was just like, ‘What do you do?’”

Paslaski lights up and interjects: “Since the set was so long we took a hybrid approach towards the end where we played some tracks that are hugely influential for us,” he says, name-checking New York experimental luminary DJ Olive, as well as WeTM, Shuttle 358 and LF58. “It fit into the set really well,” Asani points out. “We definitely like to wear our influences on our sleeves.”

One of the frequent themes rippling through coverage of Signs has been eager music journalists pointing out references to cultish, glitchy dub techno and minimal from the turn of the millennium. “Fracturing dub techno with foggy ambience somewhere between Deepchord, Shuttle 358 and Pan American,” said the reliably well-informed Boomkat review, while Philip Sherburne nodded to Jan Jelinek, Oval and Pole in his Pitchfork write-up. They’re names that mean little to most people, but are monumental for anyone seduced by the hum of machine drones and pin-prick sonics laden with dub processing. A lot of artists are aloof about influences, but Purelink are upfront about the sound they were aiming for. “The press got a lot of the references we were trying to go for, which is great!” beams Paslaski. “We’re constantly sharing music with each other, but there’s a very specific focus on early 2000s glitch music and 90s dub techno.”

The releases on Clicks & Cuts-era labels like ~Scape, Background and Mille Plateaux show their age when you listen now. Music made mainly digitally in the year 2000 often sounds thin, whereas Signs, wrought from laptops though it may be, has a warm, sensuous quality. “We definitely use computers as instruments,” says Asani, “but a lot of that late 90s, early 2000s stuff is very ‘in the box’ and cold, almost. We’re bringing, hopefully, a little bit more of an acoustic vibe – To Rococo Rot is a big influence – and morphing it together with the cold, glitchy kind of stuff.”

As the three friends spiral out on the topic of further inspirations, they touch on Beatrice Dillon’s acute sense of space and their music’s attendant relationship to dub, UK bass and Chicago’s experimental indie-rock giants Tortoise. It’s all these contrasting forces which help render the unique appeal of Signs in an ocean of ambient electronica. There’s an intentional quality to the sound which the trio have arrived at, setting the  tone for what may come next.  Equally, though, the lack of rules within this, sample-heavy style of abstraction leaves their future pleasingly unknowable.

“We are definitely a product of 2020 bands having so much time to home in on our sound,” laughs Asani. “I’m curious to see where it will go. Maybe more live instrumentation? Maybe less sampling? Maybe more chillout?” His eyes widen as he ponders the future, clearly revelling in the thrill of the unknown. “Still, it’s cool to be part of the conversation now.”

Signs is out now via Peak Oil