Pearl & the Oysters, international adventurers in eclectic pop, crash-landed their starship in Los Angeles in the year 2020. Born and schooled in Paris, the couple launched a nomadic romance fueled by music that would later see them crooning in New York jazz clubs, then wading the swampy waters of American DIY art rock in Gainesville, Florida. Today in L.A., the band’s evolving sound complements a buoyant moment in a scene where their brand of space age jazz-pop is more than welcome.
Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack met on the first day of high school in Paris – bespectacled Juju and curly-haired Jojo, both music-obsessed, nerdy, and drawn together by a “poetic connection” and mutual heroes unusual for high schoolers, like Burt Bacharach, Kurt Weill and especially, Antônio Carlos Jobim. “It’s very French of us to be into Brazil, but like, 1960s-French,” said Joachim. “When we were kids, it wasn’t that cool.”
For all its lush loveliness and the pure ASMR pleasure of its textures in headphones, Planet Pearl represents a more bittersweet, reflective journey for the Oysters’ canon to date. On their 5th full-length album, the band feels sufficiently introduced; they’re ready for another level of intimacy – truthier conversations. An attentive listener does well to connect with darker whispers in some of the band’s most outwardly charming songs. With an evolved depth of intimacy, and an unflagging zeal for experiment and play, the experience of Planet Pearl heralds a brave and prolific future for our restless voyagers.