Pearl and The Oysters

Pearl & The Oysters at MOTH Club

FORM Presents

PEARL & THE OYSTERS

+ Special Guests

Pearl & The Oysters, the duo of Juliette Pearl Davis (Juju) and Joachim Polack (Jojo), formed a decade ago in Paris, where they lived until they were young adults. Together, they make music a lot like their current base of Los Angeles: sunny on the surface, darker and more layered at its roots. Their fizzy, squiggly lounge pop – now leaning toward ‘70s piano rock as well as Brazilian, exotica and city pop influences – asks how to live with uncertainty and disquiet.

In January 2025, as Trump’s second inauguration loomed and wildfires raged through LA. Juju stayed up all night crying. The next morning, she woke to find that Jojo had written a song for her, “Wide Awake,” a calm offering in the midst of panic. From that moment, the process of creating Monkey Mind began.

Pearl & The Oysters’new album Monkey Mind takes its title from the Buddhist concept of a restless, looping consciousness: thoughts jumping, spiraling and rarely settling. Produced by Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, The Lemon Twigs, Father John Misty), the record follows that cycle across the span of a day, beginning in a state of calm before the mind wakes up, gathers speed, and eventually softens again.

Following a “primal and direct” instinct rather than retreating into long, meticulous processes, Juju and Jojo chose to work quickly, writing their sixth album in a matter of weeks. “We felt a need to tap into a certain urgency and honesty, as a result of our growing malaise with a cultural climate plagued by digital alienation and generative AI slop,” says the duo.

Using the 24-hour framework as a creative constraint, the record opens with Randy Newman-like piano, peaceful and half-asleep, before the energy shifts to the fidgety yacht rock guitar of “Mandarin Moon”, fast-paced instrumental “Shinkansen”, and the frantic ‘70s funk of “Stratford & 52” – the street the duo lived on when they first moved to LA.