Currently splitting her time between Los Angeles and Denton, TX, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is the creative mastermind and frontperson of the rising psych rock project Pearl Earl. Originally started as a bedroom project on Harley’s laptop while she was in college, the project has seen several different iterations, and now consists of a rotating cast of original lineup and touring members including Bailey K. Chapman, Stefanie Lazcano, Chelsey Danielle, Teddy Georgia Waggy and Leeza V.
Once described as “Pink Floyd in the sunlight,” Pearl Earl’s material makes heavy nods to spacey prog and golden era glam rock, but while seeing the band carve their own take. The band has also developed a reputation for a live show that’s captivating and euphoric with an ominous, impish grin. And adding to a growing profile, they have shared bills with the likes of JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls, The Black Angels and Frankie and The Witch Fingers, Oh Sees, Post Animal, Acid Dad and Black Lips. They’ve also made the run of the national festival circuit with sets at LEVITATION and SXSW among others.
Recorded at Tomas Dolas at Studio 22, and released last month through Green Witch Recordings, Pearl Earl’s sophomore It’s Dread thematically explores existential crisis in an apocalyptic, doomed world plagued by a capitalistic, patriarchal society captivated and ruled by celebrity worship and blind consumerism. And yet, despite the fact that most of the album’s material was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, “there is an underlying glimmer of help and resolution throughout its subversive demeanor,” Pearl Earl’s Ariel Hartley says.
It’s Dread‘s first single “Evil Does It” is built around woozy synths, a reverb-soaked, drunken rhythmic swing, buzzing guitars paired with Hartley’s punchy delivery and an infectious hook. The song manages to be menacing and uneasy yet somehow mischievous — and sort of campy. Evil can be so delightful, y’all!
Directed by Sara Mosier, the accompanying video for “It’s Dread” is set in a drug-addled, consumerism hellscape much like our own — and features mind-bending Bob Fosse-like sequences in a suburban home with several Versailles-like rooms, a Broadway-like set and ends with its protagonists in the endless conflagration of hell. And the Grim Reaper makes an appearance.