Purusa

Purusa is an indie rock band, originally formed in 1999 by lead singer Kris Kirkman and guitarist Zach Hinkelman. The band spent most of ‘00 playing a rigorous live schedule throughout the Pacific Northwest, while completing work on their debut EP 101. Released in early February ‘01, just after the band triumphed in the 94.7 NRK Battle of the Bands, the CD immediately showed strong sales. Despite little fanfare and promotion the CD sold enough to propel it into The Oregonian’s top 10 list of best selling Northwest Artists in early February, where it would remain for nine of the next eleven weeks, climbing as high as #3.

By the time the band was prepared to release their first full-length album in May of 2002, the anticipation amongst a growing fan base was apparent. Joined on their CD release tour by industry veterans Ian Moore and Lapdog (members of Toad the Wet Sprocket), the band made Spectacle one of the hottest selling local CD’s in Portland. After debuting at #1 on The Oregonian chart, the album proceeded to spend 10 weeks in the top 5, including five in the top spot. The single ‘Disappear’ enjoyed modest airplay around the Northwest as the band continued to tour heavily.
Work on the third album began in early 2003 with the band enlisting the help of producer Simon Widdowson, fresh off working with The Decemberists. An advance single was released in July for the song ‘Breaking Down,’ which features a guest appearance by Ken Stringfellow of The Posies and sideman for REM, who contributed backing vocals and piano. The single successfully broke the band into the college radio market, as 79 stations across the nation added it to their rotation. Though the album was completed, the band imploded before it was released, shelving the project for a decade.

Finally burying the hatchet after more than 10 years apart, the band's classic lineup reunited for a one-off show in 2014. However, the enthusiastic response blossomed that reunion into more, as the band came together again. The long awaited third album 'Repair' was released on July 11, 2015 with a triumphant performance at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, OR. The single 'Breaking Down' then garnered enough national radio play to chart at FMQB, debuting at #156 on 1-13-16 and rising each week to a peak of #49 on 3-9-16.

In August of 2016 the band celebrated the release of a brand new EP, 'Soundtrack'. This represented the first release of newly recorded material since the band reunited. The title track and single from the EP enjoyed some college radio airplay in the spring of 2017, getting adds at 47 stations across the country. In addition, the EP as a whole landed the band licensing deals with networks such as MTV and Discovery. Meanwhile the song "Fall Behind" would go on to become the band's biggest streaming hit, surpassing 130K streams in 2023.

The fall of 2019 brought a new full-length album 'Amnesia' that delivered the band's initial streaming breakthrough as the first two singles 'Julien' and 'Memory' both topped 12K streams in the first two months of release, while the third single 'Maybe I Know' went on to surpass 50K. The band performs regularly on the West Coast of the US, sharing the stage with many national acts such as Sponge, Joe Bonamassa, Geoff Tate, Glen Phillips, Dada, OURS, Chris Whitley, Indigenous and more.