Los Angeles, CA (via Paris) · space-age pop · indie pop

Pearl & The Oysters

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French-American duo making tropical space-age pop — retro-futurist synths, bossa rhythms, and candy-colored melodies, a lounge on a space station.

Pearl & The Oysters are Juliette Davis and Joachim Polack, a French duo who met in Paris as teenagers and formed the project there before moving to Gainesville, Florida, and later Los Angeles. Their partnership, both creative and romantic, dates back to high school.

Their songs draw on space-age bachelor pad pop, bossa nova and library music, built from vintage keyboards, soft vocal harmonies and light, brushed rhythms. The pair write and record largely as a self-contained unit, with Polack handling much of the arrangement and production and Davis singing.

Earlier albums, including Coast 2 Coast and Planet Pearl, came out through Stones Throw and carried the humidity of their Gainesville years. Their latest, Monkey Mind, was written in a matter of weeks and produced by Jonathan Rado, recorded live to tape with minimal overdubs.

The album takes its title from the Buddhist idea of a restless, looping mind, and traces a single day from calm to frantic and back. One track, 'Stratford & 52,' is named for the Los Angeles street where the pair first lived after leaving Florida.

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space-age popindie pop