LA psych-disco/sad-pop duo Pearl & the Oysters are back with a flurry of big-time moves. The French-reared combo made up of Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack have a new album, Planet Pearl, set to arrive on September 20 via Stones Throw. To boot? A new track and video, “Big Time,” plus rumblings of an expansive tour. Strap in and stay there because I will not repeat myself.
On the new track, the duo cue up playful, melting synths and a bevy of technicolor bleeps and bloops before cowbell, handclaps, and piano chords suggest that the party is about to get funky. Pearl sings: “Give me one more chance to cosplay happiness / Maybe I’ll look cool, yeah, maybe I’ll impress.”
The Nikki Milan Houston–directed music video was inspired by John Carpenter’s They Live. “It’s our version of an LA-centric mini-musical,” says Houston. “It showcases the inhabitants of Planet Pearl as they pose for their own kind of postcard.”
To get more insight regarding Planet Pearl, the band’s brand of depressed disco, and more, we conducted a short Q&A with the group. Check that out below, watch the band’s video for “Big Time” below. You can also pre-order Planet Pearl here.
Was there any hesitation to create a straightaway dance track? Did that concept have any negative connotations for you two?
It didn’t have any negative connotations since we both love dance music, especially the Chic Organization disco productions of the late 1970s. However, we’re certainly less experienced at making this type of music in P&TO. The current context of global dread and normalized insanity that we’ve been witnessing for the past few years (decades?) has proven to be a terrifying but somehow consistent creative fuel for songwriting. We tend to express our feelings of alienation or puzzlement in our songs, and that’s become a very therapeutic process for us. But dance can be a form of therapy, too (see labelmate and dear friend Jerry Paper). Throw these two things in a blender and you get depressed disco.
I love the concept of “depressed disco.” I obviously have my own interpretation of what it means, but what does it mean to you two?
Creatively, we’ve always felt drawn to the idea that a song is most compelling when it appears to hold layered and/or contrasting meanings/implications. In P&TO, often the music can convey one thing and the lyrics another, and we’ve been trying to cultivate that tension since Flowerland. Our songs can often have a cheerful façade because of the melodies and/or chord progressions that we typically gravitate toward, but there are always layers beneath this apparent insouciance.
This type of emotional dichotomy also exists in the Lusophone notion of saudade, which has inspired us to try to write songs that navigate within a more complex emotional spectrum, instead of yielding to the conventional binary between happy and sad, major and minor, etc. We believe that this songwriting style ultimately holds the most expressive power.
Kind of following that thread, do you think it’s possible to interrogate a structure—like disco being happy—while working within it, using the tools of the genre?
Absolutely. In a way, disco is hedonistic and Dionysian, an ode to abandon and partying, but it’s also been historically political, about liberation. Dance music can definitely be used to make people think! But more generally, we really do believe that subverting the codes of a music genre/style can be very rewarding aesthetically.
Talk to me about the Doobie-Brothers-to-Rita-Lee influence pipeline. I love it!
There’s a 1978 Doobie Brothers track called “What a Fool Believes” whose keyboard hook became iconic and sort of era-defining, partially owing to the fact that everybody tried ripping it off (with varying degrees of success)—among them Robbie Dupree’s “Steel Away” and Rita Lee’s Brazilian boogie anthem “Lança Perfume.” Over time, these types of keyboard riffs became an AOR/yacht rock trope.
Juliette, in one of your press photos you're holding an Omnichord. It's my favorite instrument! What do you two love most about it?
The Omnichord embodies what we’d like P&TO to evoke in listeners. It’s a unique, fun, quirky electronic gadget that holds so much magic and nostalgia. The harp sparkles are gorgeous, and the strum plate interface is just pure engineering genius. We’ve been hooked to the Omnichord’s enchanting sound/aura ever since we first heard it. It’s been with us since the beginning of the band, so it feels like an essential part of our sonic identity. Sadly, its resale value on the second-hand market has sky-rocketed lately.
