Pearl & The Oysters announce album & share ‘Big Time’ + video (Stones Throw)
PEARL & THE OYSTERS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM PLANET PEARL
“DEPRESSED DISCO” SONG “BIG TIME”
Watch the music video for “Big Time” HERE
Listen to “Big Time”: https://sthrow.com/bigtime
Pre-order Planet Pearl: https://sthrow.com/planetpearl
Pearl & the Oysters’ new album Planet Pearl is out 20 September – the duo’s second record for Stones Throw and the culmination of nearly two decades of connection and collaboration.
New “depressed disco” song “Big Time” casts a skeptical eye on sun-drenched, seemingly carefree L.A. Its vibrant music video directed by Nikki Milan Houston is a spin on the 80s B-movie, inspired by John Carpenter’s “They Live”. “It’s our version of an LA-centric mini musical,” says Nikki. “It showcases the inhabitants of Planet Pearl as they pose for their own kind of postcard.”
Pearl & The Oysters – Juliette Pearl Davis (Juju) and Joachim Polack (Jojo) – met on their first day of high school in Paris, and have been together ever since. Their creative and romantic partnership has held strong through college and jazz school, their musicology studies at the Sorbonne, and beyond as the band moved to America.
Pearl & The Oysters’ earlier albums were rooted in a sense of place: Flowerland waded through the swampy art-rock waters of Florida, and Coast 2 Coast documented L.A., with a breezy, AOR-inspired sound. But Planet Pearl is extra-terrestrial, written from the perspective of castaway space explorers marooned on Earth. Like Bowie’s Major Tom, they look at home from a new perspective, feeling not wonder but estrangement.
The influence of Brazilian music is strong on Planet Pearl (Jojo’s PhD was on the composer Antônio Carlos Jobim), as is the concept of saudade, the melancholic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone. “Big Time” is inspired by the Brazilian artist Chico Buarque’s “Construção”, with the lyrics written in rhyming couplets. The main harmonic and melodic influence for the song was the Doobie-Brothers-to-Rita-Lee pipeline.
Planet Pearl tackles heavier subjects, including the state of the world, mental health and the feeling of being “literal outsiders everywhere we go”. But no matter how melancholic or alienated they feel, Juju and Jojo always see the fun side, channeling their feelings into jazz-pop joy.
“Big Time” artwork.
P&TO Live Dates
Europe
11 August – Venlo, The Netherlands – Zomerparkfeest
16 August – Geneva, Switzerland – Piz Palü
18 August – Le Juch, France – Chez Hubert
USA
10/16/2024 – Brooklyn, NY – Elsewhere (Zone One)
10/17/2024 – Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA
10/18/2024 – Washington D.C. – Comet Ping Pong
10/19/2024 – Raleigh, NC – Neptunes
10/21/2024 – Gainesville, FL – The Wooly
10/23/2024 – Atlanta, GA – 529 Bar
10/24/2024 – Nashville, TN – The Blue Room
10/26/2024 – Denton, TX – Rubber Gloves
10/27/2024 – Austin, TX – Mohawk
10/29/2024 – Phoenix, AZ – Last Exit
11/03/2024 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
Photo credit: Ross Harris. Hi-res here.