New Album, By Accident, On Purpose, Out October 16th
Experimental duo Allegories share “Pure Comedy,” an ethereal and emotionally volatile new single that moves restlessly between optimism and pessimism, intimacy and aggression, hope and resignation. Shifting through dream pop, indie rock, and electronic textures without settling comfortably into any of them, the track is perhaps the clearest distillation yet of the unpredictable world Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell have built on their upcoming album, By Accident, On Purpose, out October 16th, 2026.
“Pure Comedy” evolved alongside the album itself, with Allegories working on the song throughout the years-long writing and recording process. Rather than discarding each previous incarnation as the track changed shape, fragments survived, leaving different eras of the song embedded within the finished recording.
“This is the song that I think best represents our new album,” Adam explains. “There are elements from many different iterations of the song still in there, and sonically, it feels like it touches on the kaleidoscope of sounds and genres that the record eventually became.”
Listen to “Pure Comedy” HERE. Watch the official VHS video HERE.
That history gives the song its constant sense of push and pull. Sounds collide, disappear, and re-emerge as the arrangement searches for equilibrium, while the vocal rides its peaks and valleys with what may be the album’s most intimate and expressive performance – one that can turn unexpectedly violent as the emotional pressure builds.
Narratively, that instability manifests as a battle between optimism and pessimism. The narrator fights against the impulse to surrender hope, attempting to transform anger into something constructive while simultaneously questioning whether any of that effort means anything at all.
The result is less an answer than an existential shrug. Is any of this real? Does the struggle toward something better actually matter? Or is the entire exercise ultimately a joke – pure comedy?
Sonically, those questions unfold across a constantly shifting collision of indie-electronic, dream pop, indie rock, and pop. Ethereal passages give way to sharper, more physical moments, while dreamy surfaces repeatedly reveal something less comfortable underneath. Like much of Allegories’ work, the song initially offers familiar points of entry before quietly destabilizing them.
That tension also mirrors the process behind By Accident, On Purpose itself. What began with songs written entirely on ukulele gradually transformed through reconstruction, new arrangements, competing melodies, rewritten vocals, and the return of guitars, live drums, and bass. “Pure Comedy” carries traces of that entire journey within it, making the song less a snapshot of the record than a compressed version of its evolution.
As hope and frustration repeatedly trade places, “Pure Comedy” never settles the argument. Instead, Allegories leave both possibilities intact: maybe anger can become something useful, maybe optimism is worth protecting, or maybe the absurdity of trying is exactly the point.
Each Allegories record emerges through improvisation, trial and error, and a relentless pursuit of discovery. Within that exploration, however, are guiding lights. Their first record, Surreal Auteur (2008), began as a commission for a noise tape, though the early improvisations naturally drifted toward pop structures. The sounds of ‘60s pop, Motown and The Beach Boys in particular, became foundational references. Their next record, Endless, was inspired by forward-thinking electronic musicians with one foot in the club. House music formed its DNA, though abstraction continuously bubbled to the surface.
Their newest record, By Accident, On Purpose (October 16, 2026), began with every song written on ukulele, almost as a dare, choosing the instrument least associated with electronic music. From there, those skeletal foundations were gradually erased beneath Jordan Mitchell’s eclectic arrangements until the songs transformed into entirely new forms. Adam Bentley then wrote a second song overtop of the evolving structures, before both versions, vocals, melodies, and arrangements, were fused together into something new. Through that process, more organic and traditional rock elements re-emerged. Guitars, absent from Endless (2022), crept back in alongside live drums and bass. Shoegaze textures surfaced, and traces of Mitchell and Bentley’s decade spent together in indie rock band The Rest began to cut through the electronic experimentation.
Past releases have drawn attention from Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Needle Drop, CBC, and more, alongside live appearances with BADBADNOTGOOD, Future Islands, and Yo La Tengo.
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