The Bellwether

On the surface, TV Girl is a sunny, throwback splash of ‘60s French pop and southern California soul. Yet, under that shiny veneer lays a dark heart, beating with sharp wit and cynical alienation. TV Girl, composed of Brad Petering, Jason Wyman and Wyatt Harmon, was formed in 2010 by Petering as an outlet to blend the love of Spector-esque girl-group pop with an emerging interest in hip-hop. Featuring shimmering vocals and sampled beats, the self-titled debut EP of the same year turned heads online immediately.

TV Girl unveiled their first full-length album in 2014, the critically acclaimed French Exit. The album kept true to the TV Girl charm with a bevy of electronic samplings infused throughout light and airy guitars, whirring organs and ethereal vocals that tell the tale of moody characters fuelled by revenge as often as love, underpinned by a desperation and deep yearning to connect.

Their second album Who Really Cares followed in 2016, finding the band double down on their heavy use of samples. The record saw TV Girl combine the aesthetic of 90’s hip hop with modern psychedelic pop, offering a glimpse into the psyche of a love scorned twenty- something.

The band released their latest record Grapes Upon the Vine in 2023. Their most mature effort yet, the album features extensive use of gospel samples as it explores themes of commitment, God, and the afterlife; not, of course, without TV Girl’s cynicism and biting wit. The band performed the record live across America in 2023, including an acclaimed set at Coachella.

Pearl & the Oysters, international adventurers in eclectic pop, crash-landed their starship in Los Angeles in the year 2020. Born and schooled in Paris, the couple launched a nomadic romance fueled by music that would later see them crooning in New York jazz clubs, then wading the swampy waters of American DIY art rock in Gainesville, Florida. Today in L.A., the band’s evolving sound complements a buoyant moment in a scene where their brand of space age jazz-pop is more than welcome.

Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack met on the first day of high school in Paris – bespectacled Juju and curly-haired Jojo, both music-obsessed, nerdy, and drawn together by a “poetic connection” and mutual heroes unusual for high schoolers, like Burt Bacharach, Kurt Weill and especially, Antônio Carlos Jobim. “It’s very French of us to be into Brazil, but like, 1960s-French,” said Joachim. “When we were kids, it wasn’t that cool.”

For all its lush loveliness and the pure ASMR pleasure of its textures in headphones, Planet Pearl represents a more bittersweet, reflective journey for the Oysters’ canon to date. On their 5th full-length album, the band feels sufficiently introduced; they’re ready for another level of intimacy – truthier conversations. An attentive listener does well to connect with darker whispers in some of the band’s most outwardly charming songs. With an evolved depth of intimacy, and an unflagging zeal for experiment and play, the experience of Planet Pearl heralds a brave and prolific future for our restless voyagers.

On her new EP, I’m Doing Well, Thanks For Asking, Jordana is getting to know herself again. Or more accurately: getting to know her selves.

It’s fair to say the 22-year-old New York songwriter has shifted shape a few times in her short career. She got her start with homespun indie folk on Classical Notions of Happiness before jumping to the spindly bedroom pop of Something To Say To You. A year later, she was veering into the dreamy haze of her TV Girl collaboration Summer’s Over, before eventually giving way to the hi-gloss pop of Face The Wall. It’s the kind of omnivorous output the phrase something for everyone was invented for.

Along the way she’s managed to make fans of Wallows, Local Natives & Remi Wolf, who’ve each taken her on the road in 2022, landing her in front of crowds that number in the thousands. In many ways, the magic carpet ride of touring that opened up post-pandemic hasn’t allowed Jordana the time to fully change forms again. Instead she’s synthesized a little bit of everything that came before on this new six song short-player. And while the overall sound pulls from each of her past releases, the songs themselves remain obsessed with love and neuroses, being left and leaving, pitying yourself and learning to stop.

“SYT,” the EP’s lead single, is a soaring kiss-off from a jilted lover. “It channels the feelings of empowerment and emotional awareness after a tough breakup,” says Jordana. It wouldn’t sound out of place on Face The Wall, and certainly borrows from her most recent album’s logline advice of overcoming hardships.

Elsewhere, on “You’re In The Way,” Jordana reaches back to the leathery indie pop of Something To Say To You’s “Reason” & “I Guess This Is Life.” It’s a song built around a simple drum loop, guitar strums and Jordana’s voice. “It’s about getting to know yourself again after seemingly wasting time investing in someone else,” says Jordana.

Then, of course, there’s “Careless Mistake,” which updates the hushed folk of Classical Notions, increasing the fidelity and trading in her uke for a piano and a spotlight. It sounds like a song from some future collection of ballads. Which shouldn’t be surprising, the ever shape-shifting Jordana, already aware of some new form still yet to emerge.