Beginning with 25 seconds of nature-inspired sounds, Coast 2 Coast takes listeners on a spiritual journey not unlike that of its writers. Life and artistic partners Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack, the duo behind Pearl & the Oysters, wrote their first album for Stones Throw during a time of great transition in their lives. After studying music and performing in Paris, Davis and Polack craved a new scene that reflected their style of art and moved to Florida. The school bus tours, sticky hot summers, and self-taught flute practices that defined this time in their lives make their way into Coast 2 Coast, as do the darker remembrances of Hurricane Irma, anxiety, and insomnia. Moving next to Los Angeles, Juliette and Joachim include imagery of beaches and sunshine as well. Looking back to their Paris roots, Juliette’s father makes a guest appearance on the vibraphone, which Juliette often watched him rehearse as a child. A patchwork of places and experiences, the tracks evoke hope, peace, and happiness amongst fear, chaos, and anxiety. “After moving so many times we feel that everywhere is our home and nowhere is our home either. Maybe that’s why we’re so attached to writing songs about places that make us feel good,” says Juliette. “Now, we’ve found that sense of ‘home’ in one another.”
Smooth alt-pop, Coast 2 Coast is as shimmering as it is intimate, as groovy and experimental as it is tranquil. Space age, 70’s jazz, and the eco-conscious music of the Beach Boys fuse together in a sound unlike any other. Intricate instrumentals, digital references, introspective lyrics, and thoughtful vocals run throughout each track, creating a body of work that is both sonically and lyrically complex. Standout tracks include singles “Konami” and “Pacific Ave” as well as “D’Ya Hear Me!”, a beautiful and vulnerable track with a contagious melody.
We had the pleasure of talking to Pearl & the Oysters’ Juliette and Joachim about their multitude of influences, evolution as a duo, and how playfulness and sincerity can co-exist.
Stream Coast 2 Coast now…
Watch the visuals for “Konami”…
And now for the interview…
How did you individually find a love for music?
Juliette: From a very young age I’ve been sensitive to music, rhythm and melodies. My dad is a percussionist and drummer and he always made sure we’d listen to all types of music in our household – from Brahms to Pat Metheny to Gershwin to Stevie Wonder with a special adoration for the Beatles. I loved reading album liner notes in the living room and listening to full albums with him. My brother also studied the piano so we’d always practice or play together. My heart was always there with the music. After studying piano for a little bit, I played trumpet throughout middle school and high school and took my passion for singing to another level when I entered the jazz program at the conservatory in Paris.
Joachim: My parents love music and passed the bug onto me from an early age. I grew up playing the violin—a lot, because I was quite good at it and my parents/teachers thought I should try to become a classical violinist. My parents listened to classical music and jazz mostly, but they dabbled in 60s pop now and again (Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel). Both of them were amateur pianists and they used to play a lot when I was a kid. My mom loved Chopin and my dad was (and still is) completely obsessed with Bach but we also listened to a lot of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans in the car. All these things ended up having a huge influence on my developing tastes as a teenager and personal path as a musician, especially as I grew older and aged out of garage/punk, which is what I listened to the most throughout the first couple of years of high school. My first aesthetic shock with music came through discovering the Beatles when I was 10 years old, initially the Greatest Hits and then Sgt. Pepper’s specifically, which I then became obsessed with in junior high.
How did you meet?
We met in high school in Paris. It was an arts-focused school, which is somewhat rare in France. We were in the same class and both studied music together for three years. We went on to follow the same exact path in college too (musicology/music history).
How did you first start making music as a pair?
We’d been in a band together in college, but really started working on music as a duo around 2015, a few months before we both moved to the US. It all felt very natural since we’d been making music together for a few years at this point and knew each other intimately by then. The noise-heavy aesthetics of the first few p&to songs were born out of some frustration from having been in this other band before where we felt less free to experiment with noises and a more psychedelic/lo-fi approach to production.
As life partners, do you think your bond allows you to create a more distinguished sound?
That’s an interesting question, maybe it does. What’s certain is that over time we’ve developed a sort of symbiotic musical relationship where we influence one another a lot and the boundaries of our individual tastes tend to dissolve into this eclectic hodgepodge of influences (Tin Pan Alley, early electronic music and old novelty records, Brazilian music from the 60/70s, Bebop, Sunshine Pop and Space Age music from the 60s, Exotica, Psych Rock, 70s R&B/soul, Jazz-funk, AOR, Baroque counterpoint, Gospel organ, 90s indie rock, etc)
What is your creative process as a duo?
It can vary but most often our writing process begins with chords and melody, and the lyrics come later. It does happen on occasions that a song will ‘write itself’ in 5 minutes, and then sometimes we spend months or years trying to mine an idea.
Talk us through your creative journey as Pearl & the Oysters to date?
Over the years this project evolved from a lo-fi bedroom pop experiment strictly confined to the digital world into a 5-piece touring band, so it’s definitely come a long way. Sound wise, or more specifically fidelity wise, we also feel like it’s evolved a lot and the last couple records were recorded much better.
How would you describe the essence and outlook of your sound?
Honestly, we’re just pop music nerds trying to make really good, catchy pop music, in the sense that we have an infinite love and respect for the craft that goes into making timeless songs, with great melodies/chords/arrangements. Our sound has a playfulness and kitsch character to it, partly owing to the bleeps-and-bloops factor, which is definitely a nod to space age and lounge music, but because of that there’s been a tendency for people to try to circumscribe our aesthetics to a sort of trivial/light/novelty pursuit, which we don’t entirely recognize ourselves into. The themes and the tunes aren’t necessarily bubbly either, or at least it’s been trending in a more intimate direction with these last two records. We’re basically going for this weird pop hybrid that would somehow reference all the sounds and styles we love without feeling like a pastiche, and at the same time we try to touch on something that’s both unique and timeless in the process. That’s really the goal for us!
What’s been a standout moment of your career to date?
Signing with Stones Throw meant a lot to us cause we’re such fans of the label. There’s been so many incredible moments on stage already but playing in front of thousands of people opening for Parcels at the Hollywood Palladium last year felt particularly significant!
Talk us through the making of your new album, Coast 2 Coast?
Musically, we tried to reconcile two aesthetic obsessions of ours and create a hybrid object where 70s jazz pop (particularly city pop, AOR, and Brazilian records) could meet the Beach Boys’ eco-conscious era as well as the offensively warped and yet totally fascinating ‘vicarious voyages’ packaged in exotica albums—the latter branch having occasionally found its way into the former via Haruomi Hosono who was all at once a session musician, a Brian Wilson admirer, and an early lounge music revivalist. This album is a sort of double homage to Hosono and 90s space age pop, which both share a similar cosmopolitan spirit and a general taste for the eclectic.
What are you trying to portray thematically with the project?
Thematically, this collection of songs was heavily inspired by our own move from Florida to California, so ‘coast to coast’ can actually be taken literally as to describe the band’s tumultuous journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, with one half of the album having been recorded in Gainesville in 2019 while the other was written and produced in Los Angeles in 2020-21.
Why have you chosen to call the album Coast 2 Coast?
We deliberately opted for an open-ended title able to lend itself to diverse (and diverging) interpretations in order to reflect the album’s aesthetic scope. While this record primarily explores the idea of travel—both physical and mental, both experienced and fantasized—it is equally about insomnia and the dream state, the passage of time, the mourning of Edenic nature, but also the miracle of phonography and radio broadcast.
What do you want listeners to take away from the LP?
We hope that our love of music and all the heartfelt emotions that went into the making of this album come through on some level, and generally that this music can touch people as much as we’ve been touched by music ourselves.
Where do you want to take your artistry?
We want to keep honing our craft as songwriters/arrangers/producers and keep working at making the best music we can! And to keep collaborating with people we admire!
What else is to come from you this year?
Lots of touring (in North America, Asia, France and the UK)! We’re also working on a Coast 2 Coast remix EP featuring some of our favorite contemporary musicians. 🙂