Pearly Drops ponder over romance and 80s nostalgia in "Get Well"
Optimistic and ethereal, Finnish duo Pearly Drops - made up of Sandra Tervonen and Juuso Malin - swap from producers to popstars on this hypnotic lead single to their sophomore album.
Imaginative and exciting, "Get Well" is only the beginning of their next project, which follows their 2020 record Call For Help. Speaking of the single, they said, “It's the first cut from our new season as Pearly Drops - a personal, tongue in cheek, but also frighteningly topical rumination on the relationship we have with our own interior.”
The result is a gleaming, polished pop track fusing the contemporary with vintage synth waves to form a whimsical, electronic dream. The lyrics are repetitive and absorbing, though by no means simple. The duo approaches the absurdity of love through vivid and violent imagery - “Kick my head in / Cut off my eyelids” - and a vocal that swells with wide-eyed innocence; together painting a picture of obsessive romance, lust and being just about out of touch with one another.
The visualiser - a pixelated, VHS-style video featuring roses, a box TV and classic late 80s overlays - plays into these ideas that something is slightly off, slightly surreal. Taking full control of their creative output, Pearly Drops directed the visual themselves, explaining, “it naturally took a form of artificial and manifestly dystopian representation.” The stripped-back, DIY nature of the video only builds upon the song’s celestial charm, turning it into a lo-fi call-back to generations past, though equally timeless in its execution.
The overall effect of these two things combined is best put into words from the artists themselves: “It's the first cut from our new season as Pearly Drops - a personal, tongue in cheek, but also frighteningly topical rumination on the relationship we have with our own interior. A never-ending hazy 80s childhood dream, a character selection screen in limbo." Certainly, there’s an otherworldliness to "Get Well". It seems to sit on the outlines of time. Liminal and peripheral, it is an invite into the world of Pearly Drops, in all its romanticism and eerie eccentricity.
Having established themselves as groundbreaking composers and producers of pop music - thanks to working with the likes of ALMA, Nightwave and Inga Copeland - as well as launching their own record label, their impact on the music scene of Finland is undeniable. As recipients of the Teosto Prize, they have proved themselves to be a gifted and visionary force within contemporary pop. "Get Well" and the album that is to follow can only be another sharp addition to an already impressive catalogue.
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