Who hasn’t waited until the dead of night to reveal their true nature, emboldened by darkness, lit only by the warm gleam of candlelight or the refrigerator’s artificial glow? Yet in an age of perpetual connectivity, true solitude is harder to find without the willpower to log off entirely. The night, it seems, is only as much of an escape as you’ll let it be.

Given to the Night, the forthcoming album by Purple Pilgrims—sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon—is an experiment in that spirit: created off the grid, alone with their feelings, their music, and each other. “It was similar to when we began making music when we were really young,” they tell me. “We just locked everything up, the two of us.” Recently, the duo shared “Outside,” the album’s second single, following “Innocence Lost.” Today, they share "Look to the Moon," in conjunction with a music video directed by Britt Walton.

The sisters call me from New Zealand, seated side by side on a sofa, with lush greenery visible through the window behind them. “We’re still living off the grid, but now we have internet connection,” Valentine explains when asked whether any habits from their radical disconnection stuck. “We’re back, but it was definitely an important part of our process and definitely the sound, too. It’s all seeped in.”

Raised and homeschooled between Hong Kong and New Zealand, the sisters developed an unwavering bond, a nomadic sensibility, and an endearing, if somewhat uncanny, mode of communication. “We’ve been doing it our whole lives, so we have a very intuitive, fluid process,” Clementine explains, then adds with laughter, “Usually it’s just the two of us, but when we bring other people in, they get really frustrated at times because we don’t talk.”

Throughout our conversation, they nod, giggle, and gesture in unison, their rapport difficult to miss. “We don’t really have defined roles,” Valentine says of their creative process, chalking this up, perhaps, to “a uniquely familial thing.” “One of us will come up with a line or a lyric or a melody, and we bounce it off each other and try lots of different things until something vaguely starts to stick. Then we gradually build it from there.”

The duo’s first two albums, Eternal Delight (2016) and Perfumed Earth (2019), established them at the intersection of dream pop and folk, drawing comparisons to artists such as Beach House and the Cocteau Twins. Over the years, the sisters also gained visibility through touring, sometimes alongside Ariel Pink, Aldous Harding, John Maus, Weyes Blood, and Gary War. “It’s been hugely fundamental to how we make music and how we exist as artists,” they say of performing live. “The lifestyle of being on the road comes naturally to us, and we’ve been able to keep up.”

Among the many things they share is a taste for extremes: the hustle and bustle of city life and the calm seclusion of the countryside, constant company and total isolation. “The middle area is probably less comfortable for us, probably a bit boring if we’re honest,” they laugh. Given to the Night took shape at the latter extreme. “It’s a very beautiful, isolated valley with lots of beautiful spots, like ancient trees and the bush,” they say of the property, describing a river that runs through it as an ideal place for “clearing the head.” “If the weather’s good, we’ll jump in,” Valentine says. “Even if the weather’s bad,” Clementine amends.

Beyond retreating from the online world, the pair set aside their usual external creative influences. “We really just went inward, which was unusual for us, because, like everyone else, we’re consumers of art,” they explain. “It was quite a conscious decision to try that.”

“It felt very natural, because we had made the decision to make something that felt like going back to the reason we started making music in the first place. It felt full circle,” Valentine says, reflecting on how their isolation allowed them to confront long-festering emotions. “In the past, I don’t think we would have been brave enough to do half of it.” The album features layered vocals mingling with shimmering guitars, synths, and the faint hiss of analog tape, its songs circling questions of vulnerability and reciprocity. “You’ve got to give to receive,” they say, describing this tension as central to the record. “If you can attain that balance, the flow of life comes a lot easier.”

When asked how they might describe the album to someone who couldn’t listen to it, they pause. “To us, it’s fairly elusive to describe, because we never really set out with a plan. It didn’t have a defined narrative like our previous bodies of work, where we had an overarching theme we kept referring back to,” Valentine says, Clementine nodding in unison. “This was very intuitive, very instinctive. It was really a surrender into this full spectrum of emotions we were both going through at the time.”

“We chose it a long time ago, but it still feels real,” they say of their name. “Making music, especially this project we have together, is a journey, and we’re always sort of pilgrims on it, learning… It feels almost spiritual to us now, this chosen path.” I think it’s quite fitting, really: pilgrims glowing purple in the dark of night, phones on silent—or abandoned entirely—guided only by candlelight and the beat of their own hearts.