Experimental duo Allegories release their long-awaited new album, By Accident, On Purpose, alongside the focus track “Glorious Vanity.” Moving restlessly through electronic, indie rock, dream pop, shoegaze, and more abstract terrain, the record is the result of a creative experiment that began with a seemingly simple set of rules: write every song on ukulele, make the ukulele disappear, and rebuild what remained using electronic instrumentation.
In theory, the restrictions were meant to simplify Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell’s process. Instead, they opened up an almost overwhelming number of possibilities, sending the duo down a winding creative road that began in 2021 and only reached its conclusion in the summer of 2026.
“In theory, it seemed like a way to simplify our process,” the duo shares. “In reality, it opened up a million possibilities and often made the original song almost irrelevant.”
Listen to By Accident, On Purpose in full HERE.
Watch the official “Glorious Vanity” VHS video HERE.
That tension between limitation and possibility became the engine behind the album. Allegories have long used self-imposed parameters to disrupt familiar habits and force themselves toward ideas they might otherwise overlook. Here, Jordan gradually buried the original ukulele compositions beneath eclectic new arrangements before Adam wrote additional vocals and melodies overtop, with the competing versions ultimately fused together.
Some of those original songs remain clearly present. Others barely survived. Focus track “Glorious Vanity” is the most extreme example: only its title remains from the initial composition, as the duo followed the song into the most ethereal space found anywhere on By Accident, On Purpose.
Dreamy and immersive, “Glorious Vanity” captures the willingness to abandon a predetermined destination that came to define the record. Rather than protecting the original idea, Allegories allowed instinct and experimentation to dictate what the song needed to become, creating a particularly weightless entry point into an album shaped by discovery.
The process also produced an unexpected sonic turn. Despite initially planning to rebuild the songs electronically, increasingly organic elements found their way back into the music. Guitars, largely absent from 2022’s Endless, returned alongside live drums and bass. Shoegaze textures surfaced, while traces of Jordan and Adam’s decade spent together in indie rock band The Rest began bleeding through the electronic experimentation.
The resulting record sits somewhere between those histories. Indie-electronic production collides with dream pop atmosphere, indie rock instrumentation, fractured arrangements, and flashes of pop immediacy. Familiar structures appear before veering somewhere less predictable, allowing the duo’s electronic and rock instincts to coexist without either becoming the dominant language.
What initially made By Accident, On Purpose frustrating ultimately became its guiding principle. The rules designed to narrow the duo’s options instead forced them into unfamiliar territory, where accidents could become creative decisions and unexpected ideas could reshape the direction of the record.
The title consequently feels less like a contradiction than an explanation of how Allegories work. There is intention behind the parameters, but no guarantee of where they will lead. After five years of following those possibilities, By Accident, On Purpose finds its identity somewhere between control and surrender.
Every Allegories record is an exploration into the abyss, built through improvisation, trial and error, and the possibility that nothing useful will be discovered. Their debut, Surreal Auteur, began as a commission for a noise tape before ‘60s pop, Motown, and The Beach Boys pulled its improvisations toward pop structures. Follow-up Endless looked instead toward forward-thinking electronic music with one foot in the club, placing house music at its foundation while abstraction continually bubbled toward the surface.
On By Accident, On Purpose, those histories begin colliding. Unguarded pop songs coexist with cut-up samples and fractured arrangements drawing from IDM, shoegaze, dream pop, psychedelia, indie rock, and experimental electronic music. There is always an attempt to write something resembling a pop song – or at least Allegories’ idea of one – but an unspoken equilibrium between accessibility and abstraction eventually emerges.
That willingness to get lost has given Allegories a sound detached from trend chasing or artificial construction: an amalgamation of shared history, mutual taste, and nearly two decades spent creating together. Previous releases have earned attention from Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Needle Drop, Consequence, Paste, PopMatters, Exclaim!, and CBC, while the duo have shared stages with BADBADNOTGOOD, Future Islands, Yo La Tengo, Passion Pit, and Sean Nicholas Savage. They plan to take By Accident, On Purpose on the road throughout 2027. Another album may arrive sometime around 2034.
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