“I looked to the moon, the moon looked at me / She said just be free, she said just be free.” That’s the whole of “Look to the Moon” in two lines — a mantra, a sisterly love song, a communion with the universe, an anthemic prayer, in the duo’s own words. And it’s the kind of song that makes you understand why Paste named it their Song of the Week: “dreamy and hazed-out… balanced upon the sisters’ gentle voices and a wispy wall of strings and synths.”

Purple Pilgrims are Clementine and Valentine Nixon, a dream-pop sister duo from New Zealand, and “Look to the Moon” is the third and final single from their third album Given to the Night, out November 27 on AD 93 worldwide and Flying Nun Records at home. The album was made after the sisters deleted social media and retreated to the trees of native New Zealand, recording songs as they appeared — “sometimes felt like catching light.” The title reads two ways, and both are true: being drawn to the night, or giving yourself up to it. At 2:42, the single is the shortest, gentlest doorway into that world — the video, directed by Britt Walton with NZ On Air support, matches the song’s hazed glow.

This is their third album after Eternal Delight (2016) and Perfumed Earth (2019), and the slow-burn catalogue shows: the sisters have been building this sound for a decade, and “Look to the Moon” is its most distilled form yet. The previous singles “Innocence Lost” and “Outside” set the table; this one says grace. New Zealand release shows follow in December — Auckland on the 5th, Wellington on the 11th — but the song itself needs no occasion. Put it on, look up, and let it do what it says: just be free.

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Stream hub — Given to the Night