Pearl & The Oysters: 2025

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

Note: This session was recorded before the Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025.

Pearl & The Oysters fifth album, Planet Pearl, effortlessly charms with effervescent songs buoyed by rainbow-bright production. However, listen more closely to the lyrics and wistful melancholy is afoot too. If there were ever a time that the planet needed a dose of Pearl & The Oysters thoughtful sunshine pop, it's most likely now.

Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim "Jojo" Polack immigrated from France some years ago. Since landing in the States, they've built upon their love of the American songbook, Brazilian bossa nova and samba, Eighties lounge, and other byways to make their own sparkling brand of champagne pop, or in their tongue-in-cheek description, "depressed disco."

The pair — who met in high school in Paris — have lived in New York, Gainsville, Florida (where Polack got his Ph.D), and now Los Angeles, still feel like outsiders sometimes. Lyrically, they explore that scramble for belonging — and homesickness — to their songs with extraterrestrial and interstellar metaphors.

"Maybe the overarching concept was something that tied the album together," explained Polack. "It is an album about feeling very alien in a way so the metaphor felt just perfect; it's at its most realized on Planet Pearl."

Much about Planet Pearl is also connected to Juliette and Jojo's family — Juliette's father is on the album, and JoJo's mother's illness — and recovery — also influenced the deep emotional core of the album.

Davis and Polack — joined by drummer Pat Howard, guitarist Adam Paulson, and bassist Jonathan Rivera — chose three songs from Planet Pearl for their FUV Live session: "Side Quest," "Triangular Girl," and "Cruise Control."

[Recorded: 10/15/24; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Erin Merriman and Zack Tomassi; Produced by Meghan Offtermatt with Kathryn Scherman and Simone Yañez. Videographers: Lyla Toomey, Olivia Iannaccone, Anna Fahy, Louisa Schramm, and Mia Vilke.]