Born in the mythical land of Hollywood, where the psychedelic fragrance of the California State Poppy lingers in the air, Pearl Charles was raised on American folk music. Though she did for a time immerse herself in the world of American primitivism - The Carter Family, Smithsonian Folkways and Alan Lomax’ archival recordings of the American South - having grown up in Los Angeles, the folk culture she personally encountered was that of her hometown. A culture that on the surface seems to be communally shared with the world via the vast amount of media exported from Hollywood, but is only truly known by the people who live and breath the smog laced air of the city itself - thick with the salt from the Pacific Ocean and the dust from the Mojave desert.
In this land of cults and alternative spirituality, she developed her own cosmic brew from the influences around her - Disco, Country, Yacht Rock, Funk and all of the folk musics of the post-urban migration of mid-20th century America. Weaving these influences together like a seamstress for the band, she offers up her own addition to the great patchwork quilt of American music. Yet, unlike so much of what we’ve become accustomed to in our current heavily referential, sample based culture, there’s something in this collage that is undeniably new. By sifting through the fragments of bygone eras and reimagining what she finds, she creates her own unique brand of modern American folk music and reframes retro-fetishism as a futurist vision.
