Clementine Valentine
Sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon draw inspiration from their nomadic family heritage, creating music that evokes contrasting moods: ancient and modern, paradise and isolation, beauty and brokenness, ritual and the present moment.
Having grown up between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the sisters gained experience by performing in unconventional spaces and rogue music venues throughout Hong Kong's abandoned industrial estates, captivating audiences with their blend of experimental noise and futuristic dream-pop as Purple Pilgrims.
The duo have toured the world extensively alongside the likes of Ariel Pink, Aldous Harding, John Maus, and Weyes Blood. It’s a lifestyle embedded in their lineage; travelling musicians and performers go back hundreds of years on their maternal side (as documented on recordings such as The Travelling Stewarts, from 1968). As children, the sisters were taught to sing traditional balladry by their grandmother, daughter of revered Traveller musician Davie Stewart (later recorded by Alan Lomax).
While their earlier works were self-produced and released through underground labels, the sisters have honed their skills to create a more fully realised and sophisticated new sound.
The Coin that Broke the Fountain Floor is a pivotal album in the creative evolution of sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon, formerly known as Purple Pilgrims. It finds them leaning further than ever before into collaboration, folklore, poetry, and power. Their intertwined vocals reach for loftier, more operatic heights of pop and myth, heartbreak and desire, suffused with the spirit of storytelling heroines long lost to time. The album title alludes to the tipping point extremes of recent years, coloured by dreams crushing, wishes gathering, and an abundance of hope.
Having grown up between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the sisters gained experience by performing in unconventional spaces and rogue music venues throughout Hong Kong's abandoned industrial estates, captivating audiences with their blend of experimental noise and futuristic dream-pop as Purple Pilgrims.
The duo have toured the world extensively alongside the likes of Ariel Pink, Aldous Harding, John Maus, and Weyes Blood. It’s a lifestyle embedded in their lineage; travelling musicians and performers go back hundreds of years on their maternal side (as documented on recordings such as The Travelling Stewarts, from 1968). As children, the sisters were taught to sing traditional balladry by their grandmother, daughter of revered Traveller musician Davie Stewart (later recorded by Alan Lomax).
While their earlier works were self-produced and released through underground labels, the sisters have honed their skills to create a more fully realised and sophisticated new sound.
The Coin that Broke the Fountain Floor is a pivotal album in the creative evolution of sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon, formerly known as Purple Pilgrims. It finds them leaning further than ever before into collaboration, folklore, poetry, and power. Their intertwined vocals reach for loftier, more operatic heights of pop and myth, heartbreak and desire, suffused with the spirit of storytelling heroines long lost to time. The album title alludes to the tipping point extremes of recent years, coloured by dreams crushing, wishes gathering, and an abundance of hope.
