Pearly Drops

Painting with a bold, slightly macabre palette, Pearly Drops’ Sandra Tervonen and Juuso Malin create a realm of strange, softly smudged pop. On the Helsinki act’s third full-length, The Voices Are Coming Back, fantasy and the mundane tangle into an alluring web of mystery. The record — issued by forward-thinking New York City label Music Website — centers on an age-old tale: the saga of Hollywood hopefuls.

 

Branching beyond their home of Finland, Pearly Drops are an emerging fixture of the global indie-electronic scene. The act wraps sweet, dreamy melodies in futuristic hues. It’s fitting that Tervonen and Malin share backgrounds in music production and collaborated on sound design efforts before morphing into an artist project. Pearly Drops’ 2020 debut, Call For Help, and its 2023 follow up, A Little Disaster, introduced a mesmerizing formula — blending misty rock and electronic elements. The pair’s often playful, grungy fashion sense enhances these chic sonics, with all photos and styling handled in house. Pearly Drops has received a Teosto Prize — one of the Nordic countries’ most prestigious music awards. The duo has collaborated with artists such as Vitesse X and KROY, and their own songs have been covered and remixed by acts including XL Recordings’ Nourished by Time and American dream-pop favorites Dream, Ivory.

 

On The Voices Are Coming Back, Tervonen and Malin swapped the familiarity of Finland for the peculiar glamour of Los Angeles. “We’d always imagined LA through the lens of David Lynch: saturated in surrealism, a little menacing, a little magical — and that’s exactly how it felt. A puzzling, but beautiful cultural shock,” Tervonen and Malin reflect on the city. The bizarre energy of Southern California beams bright on album opener “Delusional On Sunset Boulevard.” “I think I just got older / Growing cold and dumber too / No pat on my shoulder / I ride my horse through Hollywood,” Tervonen’s elven vocals skate around vast chords and the strobe of a synth lead.

 

The album draws a relatable, yet otherworldly picture adrift in uncertainty, drawn by the age-old allure of reinvention. Instead of glamor, they find themselves lost in the woods of Franklin Hills. Hiding behind a tree from mystical voices one moment, the next they’ve transformed into mermaids in the sewers under Sunset Boulevard. Time melts away on drives around the eastern Santa Monica Mountains. In the end, the only way back is through a forest in Silver Lake. Despite the storybook universe it conjures, Pearly Drops cite The Voices Are Coming Back as a work of autofiction.

As The Voices Are Coming Back’s journey nears a close, Pearly Drops are emotionally unraveled. “Only believe in / My digital feelings / Still reaching for the / Undo in the void,” Tervonen sings on the closing track, “Silver Lake Mystery Forest.” “It feels like with this third album, we bottled up that feeling of losing your mind and your identity when trying to chase your dreams — whatever they happen to be,” Tervonen and Malin muse. Across this feverish vision of a record, the uncertainty and burnout of everyday life manifest in uncanny, albeit deeply human ways.