The iconic L.A. label Stones Throw has announced Pearl & The Oysters — the newly Californian duo of singer-songwriter Juliette Pearl Davis and multi-instrumentalist/composer Joachim Polack (by way of Paris, France and Gainesville, Florida) — as its newest signees. In celebration of their new contract, Davis and Polack have shared a song called “Pacific Ave.” It’s their first standalone single since the arrival of their third album, Flowerland, last fall. (They contributed two French-language tracks to a split cassette with the Parisian band Biche, released in June via Feel Trip Records.
“Pacific Ave,” a nostalgia bomb inspired by the analog/digital blending of classic Japanese fusion acts like Casiopea and Yellow Magic Orchestra, features Alex Brettin (Mild High Club) on guitar and comes with a video by Sean McGuirk in the same vintage vein. The track details P&TO’s second move west in early 2020, with Davis describing the ill-timed trip in her sugary soprano above a lattice of synths and traditional instruments. The end result occupies a similarly dreamy electro-lounge space to the songs of the visionary ’90s groops who paved the duo’s path.
“‘In January 2020, we settled in L.A. full of hope for the future of the band,” Davis and Polack write in a press release. “‘Pacific Ave’ was a cryptic attempt to allude to our first steps in this new environment being a little alienating, as we were discovering a megalopolis turned ghost town. Because we were physically confined, it really felt like the only avenue to escape was a mental one. For us, it meant a lot of daydreaming and fantasizing about L.A. itself or what it could represent. The song is inspired sonically by AOR [(album-oriented rock)] and jazz-pop records of the late 1970s.”
Watch the video for “Pacific Ave” above and view the schedule for Pearl & The Oysters’ brief upcoming tour of the American West below.
Pearl & The Oysters tour dates
November 8 - Duffy’s Tavern - Chico, CA
November 10 - Lollipop Shoppe - Portland, OR
November 11 - Freakout Festival - Seattle, WA
November 12 - Neurolux - Boise, ID
November 13 - Quarters SLC - Salt Lake City, UT
November 15 - Harlow’s - Sacramento, CA