Pure Bathing Culture, the indie-pop identity of Portland’s Sarah Versprille and Daniel Hindman, make music instantly identifiable, yet utterly personal. The pair declare it’s about “love and perseverance, the feeling that if we protect each other and if we protect what we love, there is nothing we can't endure or become.” 

Their story began when Sarah and Daniel befriended one another on the first day of freshman orientation at New Jersey’s William Patterson University. They became bandmates in 2009, when they joined Vetiver for their Sub-Pop albums Tight Knit and The Errant Charm. During that time, Pure Bathing Culture gradually emerged. “Dan was working on some instrumentals that he would make on a looping pedal,” Sarah said. “One night, he was out and I just listened to this loop and wrote some lyrics to it. He came home and I showed it to him. We laughed at first, as we didn’t have some grand plan to start a band. It just happened naturally.” That song, “Lucky One,” wound up in the hands of Richard Swift, who encouraged the duo to keep writing. “Richard pushed us along and became an inspiration,” Dan said. Swift produced both the band’s debut EP and first full-length, Moon Tides, at his National Freedom studio.

Pure Bathing Culture went on to release two beloved records on Partisan Records as well as a masterful album cover of The Blue Nile’s cult classic Hats. They attracted a loyal audience with their inimitably radiant live performances, touring nationally with such acts as Death Cab For Cutie, The Shins, Father John Misty, and many more. This year welcomed the highly anticipated  Night Pass, produced by Tucker Martine (REM, My Morning Jacket, Neko Case and Spoon) and released on Infinite Companion. The album opens with an anthem of renewal, “Thin Growing Thing” — an intentional choice according to Sarah, who says, “We can’t imagine a better lyric from the album to introduce a listener to what we are trying to say. Love is something that has the potential to bind us all and where it’s absent we should strive to create it.” This is Pure Bathing Culture’s constant, the conviction that carries them from past to present. As Night Pass clarifies, over the course of their eventful career, Sarah and Daniel have done more than establish a musical identity: they’ve honed a sonic virtue, an virtuosity in sounds supernatural and ethereal, beaming with electric intimacy..

 Following Night Pass’s release, Daniel and Sarah took to the road with Lucius as an acoustic duo for the first time. They welcomed this rare opportunity to revisit the songs that built Night Pass, to explore and rearrange their album’s clandestine details, and to share their findings in intimate, unplugged form. The experience led to recording Equinox, a five-song EP that sheds new light on Pure Bathing Culture’s creativity, presenting a warm, intimate setting for three songs from Night Pass as well as two fan favorites, “Pendulum” and “Pray for Rain.”