In Conversation With #116 - Pearl Charles
Pearl Charles opens up about hotly awaited album ‘Magic Mirror’.
‘Magic Mirror’ follows the cartography of a girl, growing into a woman, as she moves through life from single-dom, to the expansive space of self-reflection, and the newly appreciated perspective of coming back together again and finding yourself, this time with someone new. Pearl Charles talks about music creation during these difficult times, and sitting at the intersection of lightheartedness and deeply personal musings.
Obviously this is a crazy time for musicians, so from your perspective, how has lockdown changed your plans? Has it helped or hindered inspiration?
I’m really lucky that I live with my boyfriend and we’re able to continue to collaborate even after we got locked down. For the first four months, we didn’t play music with anyone besides each other, and that’s really crazy - we’re both full-time musicians, and we’re used to playing with people all of the time, and you realise how important it is to you, but at the same time you almost take it for granted because we were able to do that so easily before.
It’s been inspiring because we’ve had to kind of pivot to having a new attitude and new focuses, and instead of learning new songs for shows, we’re just learning new songs for fun, and kind of getting back to basics in terms of what it was like when we were just doing it for fun.
In terms of how ‘Magic Mirror’ came together, was it something that was already in action before, or did most of it come together through lockdown? What was that process like?
It was actually supposed to come out in September, and we finished in January - so I was lucky to have finished it before. I’m really grateful that I was able to get it finished before, but then it kind of put it in this weird limbo where I was like; I want to put it out, but I don’t really know what the landscape is going to be like. So we settled on releasing the first single in September so we could keep things going, but it was weird to sit on things for a while, although I feel like that kind of thing happens a lot.
That being sad, there’s a song on the album called ‘As Long As You’re Mine’, which is basically about the world ending, and obviously the world has been in peril for a while, but I wrote that song in a sort of joking-way; like ‘it’s okay, because we’ve got each other’, but then I was like, ‘wow, the world really is ending!’ - it’s true, life imitates art!
You have this lyricism that’s quite deep and personal, and quite dark at times, but on the surface, you can enjoy the songs in a light way and it’s a duality that works. Is achieving this dichotomy a conscious choice?
I talk a lot about psychedelics, and I think that it is very much that experience. You can take psychedelics and you can have a very fun trip, but if you go deeper down that rabbit hole you can experience more in terms of past experiences and all of that, and life is complex, and I think that dichotomy is always there, so I think I do always want to represent that.
Personally, I’m not really attracted to that much in terms of outwardly dark stuff in music, I really like dark films - but then, more like psychologically compelling rather than the gore factor. So, I don’t really want to make metal, but I do want to make something that’s going to make you feel something. It might be dark sometimes - it might be happy too - but it’s all going to be there. It’s always going to be the full spectrum of emotion.
You grasp at the complexities of life, and it’s all genre-bending, so is that something you’ve always thought about in your music, particularly when you decided to go solo?
I feel like I’ve had a lot of personal growth since I started. Even jumping into doing solo music from being in bands, it was a process of becoming more and more conscious, and I feel like that’s a life-long process, but I don’t feel like I was as conscious in what I was doing before. Which, in some ways, it could be good to go back to doing that, and just come from a place where you’re thinking about it less, but I do think that I’ve gone in that direction the more I’ve grown and developed my sound.
You’ve mentioned that ‘Magic Mirror’ is like a looking glass, how much would you say that your personal experiences impact on how you write music?
I would say that I am very autobiographical in my music. All of my songs are about my personal experiences, at least in their inception. Sometimes I try to look around me and bring in more universal experiences but at the same time I feel like everyone has different experiences, but we all have the same emotions and go through a lot of the same things. So, though I am autobiographical, I do want to be able to write something that’s appealing to all sorts of people.
But yes - to answer your question, a lot of it is about my life. That’s something I do want to work on, though; writing for other people. But for now, it’s very much a diary of my life.
Do you have any specific influences that you borrow from each genre that sit quite highly in terms of how you put together a song or album?
I’m really into references, but the way that I use them is less specifically like ‘I’m going to take this or this’. Sometimes the way to achieve the same vibe or feeling [as something else] is sometimes not through directly referencing, but in finding different ways to do that.
I just want to be true to myself, but in terms of the music industry. I think people are used to putting people in boxes, but at the end of the day I’m not quite country, I’m not quite rock ‘n’ roll - I think sometimes people are confused but they’ll come ‘round!
‘Imposter’ is a standout on the album - what does this song mean to you and how did it come together?
That’s actually my favourite song on the album too. I love them all, and when you go into the world of record-making, you don’t know which is going to become your favourite, but that was one that I wrote really quickly.
It’s a very simple song, and to me it has a tropical feel, which wasn’t my intention at all, but it totally speaks to what you’re saying about the fact that it sounds like a very lighthearted song on the surface but when you listen to the lyrics it’s about imposter syndrome, which I think a lot of people suffer from. That concept comes up on the album a lot - I talk about looking into the mirror and questioning who you really are. I can’t say I know the answer, but I at least have the question!
Would you say that everything that’s happened in the past year has enabled the album to resonate in different ways?
Totally, I do think that all of these songs have taken on new meanings. Although in some ways it’s the same; for example, when I released ‘What I Need’, I mentioned that things have really changed but at the same time, a lot of the core beliefs that I have have been strengthened. You need to keep a positive attitude if you can, because life can get hard, and there’s going to be challenges thrown at you all of the time.
What are you looking forward to in the coming months?
I have a bunch of music videos that are in the making, so I’m really excited about that. Making the visual element to go along with the music is another fun, creative layer to making it. This is the best work we’ve ever done - so I’m very excited for the album to be out there.
Finally, what are you listening to at the moment?
I’m really obsessed with this guy’s playlist, he’s from Australia, it’s on Mixcloud, but his name is Feathered Canyons, and the playlists are called ‘Pastoralia’, and they’re so good! I want to shout him out, because he doesn’t nearly get enough credit. He’s a great curator. It’s really beautiful.
Feature by Kelly Scanlon