It was just over a week ago that Pure Adult played a raucous set on BABY TV, the socially distanced version of indie venue Baby’s All Right, and this writer is still recovering. The Brooklyn-duo-turned-live-foursome is known for filtering adult concerns–e.g., late capitalism, social control, granny panties–through a childlike impulsiveness whose end result is a big wonderful mess of burbling synths, stuttering drums, gratuitous guitar pedal abuse and brief spasms of strutting rawk. Pure Adult’s mix-and-match aesthetic is not unlike a kid let loose with a 128-count box of crayons, fresh piles of Play-doh and a prescription of Ritalin. The set below opens with the band’s as-yet-unreleased “Ain’t I A Woman” (shout out to Sojourner Truth) segueing into “The New Guillotine” (see underwear fetish above), a track from the band’s debut EP S/T (self-titled, that is). In these five minutes you get a pretty good idea of what they’re about: a feral Foucauldian funhouse ride that’s equal parts “queasy listening” and raw ecstatic rush. (Jason Lee)
