Pearl & The Oysters have today released their new album titled ‘Planet Pearl’ via Stones Throw Records. As if visiting us from a simpler, and some say better time, ‘Planet Pearl’ has an almost sonically other worldly vibe about it with a blatantly retrotastic feel meant for those minds that want to let go and yearn for something a little different.
While there is a strong AM era radio vibe, the sound is modern and defining with gorgeous hooks and melodies that stay in the mind and inspire. The heroes of the album, however, is the songwriting and the lush vocals. Monumental.
About Pearl & The Oysters
While Pearl & The Oysters’ earlier albums documented Juju and Jojo’s lives in Florida and L.A., Planet Pearl is extra-terrestrial, written from the perspective of castaway space explorers marooned on Earth. The theme of alienation is captured on “Triangular Girl,” the final single from Planet Pearl, written about a triangular character who’s “geometrically unfit to evolve in the curvilinear world surrounding her”. The music video by Nikki Milan Houston features the triangular character (also performed by Nikki), dancing alone on a “planet once sprawling with life, that now feels empty and desolate”.
“Triangular Girl” was written 12 years ago, when the duo were at jazz school in Paris. They decided to re-work the song for Planet Pearl, this time with a stellar cast of L.A. musicians: Riley Geare of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Caleb Buchanan, Logan Hone and Andrew Forman, and taking inspiration from 60s and 70s Brazilian waltzes. The influence of Brazilian music is strong throughout Planet Pearl – Jojo’s PhD was on the composer Antônio Carlos Jobim – along with the Brazilian concept of saudade, the melancholic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone.
Written, composed, and produced by Pearl & The Oysters, Planet Pearl also includes the addition of Producer Teo Halm (Rosalía, J Balvin, Omar Apollo) on select songs and musicians Alex Brettin of Mild High Club, Brijean Murphy and other friends and collaborators throughout.
Already Pearl & The Oysters has received praise from NPR, Pitchfork (…”synth sounds you can sink your teeth into, gooey guitar licks that stick to the roof of your mouth, and vocal harmonies so syrupy they linger on your tastebuds…”, The Fader, MOJO (“…dreamy space-age exotica…”), BBC 6, KCRW, CLASH and more. Recently they wrapped up a West Coast tour with stops in Pioneertown, San Francisco, Seattle, and today announce their own set of headline tour dates for the fall with stops in Los Angeles, Nashville and more.
Now based in Los Angeles, the duo first met on their first day of high school in Paris, and have been making music together ever since. The two moved across the Atlantic in 2015 after pursuing musicology degrees at Sorbonne University, with a brief stint in Gainesville, Florida, where Polack pursued his PhD in musicology eventually crash landing in Los Angeles.
Featured image by Ross Harris.
LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/pearlandtheoystersband/
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https://pearlandtheoysters.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@pearlandtheoystersmusic