Pearl Charles
credit: Dana Trippe
If the indie singer-songwriter Pearl Charles’ latest album, Desert Queen, sounds dreamy, psychedelic and hazy, it’s most likely due to the environment of the album’s creation. In December 2020, amid the COVID pandemic, Charles and her musical collaborator and partner, Michael Rault, moved from Los Angeles to the desert community of Joshua Tree.
“I feel like the album — sometimes more literally and other times more poetically — was really influenced by that move,” Charles says of Desert Queen, “whether that’s talking about the experience of living in the desert, and just being able to work in such a quiet environment that’s very focused with very little distractions. There’s the spiritual element of being in the desert and what that brought out of me. And so I felt like that was represented as well.”
Charles’ latest Desert Queen, continues to mine the cosmic country sound as heard on her 2021 record Magic Mirror. “I feel like I’ve been working on some of the same kinds of concepts lyrically but even more so musically,” she says. “We’re still definitely going for like a ’70s yacht rock/disco kind of thing. But I think we brought in even more of the folk elements, like some of that Laurel Canyon sound, which I’ve always loved. And I think I’ve always worked in that footprint. But I think that we kind of succeeded even further.”
Charles’ alluring voice is the constant thread on this infectious collection of upbeat numbers (“City Lights,” “Does This Song Sound Familiar”) and introspective tunes (“Smoke in the Limousine”). Another highlight from the new record is the reflective and jazzy “Step Too Far.”
“It was originally written on acoustic guitar, and we wrote it with my friend Trevor, who co-wrote a lot of the songs on the album,” she says. “And he took that home and went and played it on the piano in a Carole King style. It had been a little bit more folky or country when it was on acoustic. Then he switched it over, and we were like, ‘Oh, this is the way for this song.’ And now it’s personally my favorite on the album.”
With its piercing guitar riff, the relaxed and sublime “Middle of the Night” is a dead ringer for any classic soft rock tune from the 1970s. “That started out with me coming up with that chorus of ‘In the middle of the night.’ And I remember showing it to Michael, whom I co-wrote the song with, and being like, ‘I have this idea.’
“When the lyric and the melody come together, that’s oftentimes like the strongest, clearest thing that comes through. So that was what it started with. And then we sat down together in the middle of the night one night and said, ‘Oh, maybe we should work on this tune.’It took on a whole life of its own.”
Another notable track from Desert Queen, the country-esque ballad “Just What It Is,” evokes classic Fleetwood Mac. “One of the days of recording, I found out earlier that morning that Christine McVie had passed away. And she is like my number one. If I had to pick anyone, like my desert island records, it would definitely be Fleetwood Mac, probably Tusk, where I feel like she shines. I knew I wanted to infuse her energy into the album. Fleetwood Mac was a huge inspiration. The vocal arrangement and the way the song fades in and out, all of that was definitely considered when making that. So I’m glad that that comes across.”
The rocking “Gone So Long” features a guest appearance by Tim Burgess of the Charlatans. The friendship between Burgess and Charles began when the former featured Magic Mirror on his Twitter Listening Party in 2021. “He’s just a great guy,” she says. “We became friends, and he asked me to sing on his album. As my record started coming together, I had this idea of, ‘How can we get Tim involved in some way?’ We looked at all the songs to see if there was anything that felt right. We were like, ‘This is the perfect one for his voice and style.’ I was so lucky that he said ‘yes’ and agreed to be a part of it.”
The classic sound of ‘70s Southern California is so steeped in Charles’ music, which is not surprising given that she grew up in Los Angeles (Her father is screenwriter-film director Larry Charles, best known for his work on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm). Her musical tastes are the byproducts of her parents’ listening habits.
“My mom really loved singer-songwriters,” Charles recalls. “It was all about John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt. My dad introduced me to Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Stones. So those two things really influenced me. And then I kind of found my own way.”
Her first love in the creative arts was musical theater, which later morphed into rock and roll as she got older. “Ultimately, songwriting is actually probably my favorite part of the whole process, really figuring out what it is I want to say and communicating. And it’s such a great form of self-expression. It’s so therapeutic.”
Charles’ professional start in music began as one-half of the Americana duo Driftwood Singers, which included Christian Lee Hutson. The two recorded a full-length album released in 2012 before they parted ways, and Charles later moved on as a solo act. It was when she met Rault that she found her musical kindred spirit.
“We’ve both been aware of each other,” she says. “We’ve been on the same labels and lived in the same kind of world. We just really hit it off and hit it off personally but also creatively. He’s been working out of our studio, at our house, producing other bands, and as well as me.”
“He’s a great singer, great songwriter, great musician, great producer,” she continues. “But he’s also very intuitive and able to connect what it is that the artist wants sometimes better than they even consciously know themselves… I feel very lucky to have him as a collaborator.”
Pearl Charles.
credit: Dana Trippe
Meanwhile, Charles – who has shared stages with musicians such as Jenny Lewis — will be playing in the U.K. and the Netherlands starting next month, with more dates to follow. As she is still relatively emerging artist, does she feel like she was born in the wrong decade because of her love for ‘70s country, R&B, soft rock and disco?
“I always love that song by the Beach Boys, “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,”” she says. “I oftentimes dream of being alive in the ’70s, especially in L.A. And I try to envision myself there and channel that for sure. But I think maybe it’s part of my purpose to try and channel that energy of that time, the positive parts of it, and bring that into today.”
