Meet Pearly Drops: The Finnish Duo Taking You on a Spectral Journey Through Imagination!

For those looking to immerse themselves in the deep, misty forests of Finland, Pearly Drops is your gateway. This emerging duo from Helsinki, comprising Sandra Tervonen and Juuso Malin, is ready to unveil yet another slice of their peculiar world with their third album, The Voices Are Coming Back, hitting the shelves by late summer. Following a performance at La Boule Noire on June 18, they released Ratgirl, Mermaid, and more recently, End Credits and Pillow Face, the initial singles from this new record, all of which evoke the sensation of a feverish dream. One month before the release of their latest creation, these artists of ethereal synthpop are still reinventing themselves and pulling us into their nightmarish, timeless folkloric realm.

The journey began in 2019 when the Finnish pair formed this new duo, a project they manage from start to finish, leading to their debut album release. Call For Help came shortly after the end of lockdown, and it shows. A period of suspended time, it’s a hermetically sealed bubble from the outside world, a first endeavor drawing on 2010s pop influences like Grimes’ Genesis, combined with 1980s production and synths, all topped with a futuristic sheen and the unique stretched vocals of the singer. A rich yet cohesive production, the result is an amorphous entity that resonates long after the final note.

A Jack-of-all-trades Duo

That’s the impression left by their second album released in 2023, A Little Disaster. Like the pearly drops they are named after, Pearly Drops crafts in their songs a porous and oppressive atmosphere, dripping with melancholic lyrics—themes of mourning, obsessive love, and loss—with a hint of irony. This unique presence is something they hadn’t had the chance to develop before forming the duo. In 2013, Sandra Tervonen joined Femme en Fourrure, of which Juuso Malin was already a member, a project with a heavier techno influence that already carried elements of the Pearly Drops formula. No longer inspired by that setup, the friends took matters into their own hands and started from scratch: new concept, new music, new approach.

From then on, they drew from more personal sources, advanced productions, and a completely self-managed artistic direction. From writing to album covers, and of course the music, Pearly Drops assembles each piece of their universe until it forms a whole, idiosyncratic body. The two producers work in symbiosis—writing, composing, and producing—with Sandra Tervonen at the mic. But their involvement doesn’t stop at music: they carefully select their outfits, produce their own music videos, and the singer even paints the album and single covers in watercolor, with input from her partner.

The result is a visual presentation as abstract and unsettling as the project it accompanies. While the colors vary, the art of these covers merges into an image that lingers in the mind: a woman with a waxy complexion, distorted features, and expressionist brush strokes, occasionally marked by water droplets. Pearly Drops adopts motifs from modernism—magical realism, nature as a reflection of psychology, transcending established boundaries—to piece by piece construct their own world, where those out of step with society are invited.

The Rise of the Weird Girl

“I need to be weird in the coming years,” declares the singer in Mermaid. A pledge to embraced weirdness that aptly sums up the duo’s polymorphic creed. Is it a call to break away from social norms or simply a declaration of an atypical personality? Either way, it’s the pursuit of individuality that makes the group stand out. Their lyrics, as well as the procession of artistic creations that surround them, imbue the music with a strange glow, sometimes melancholic, sometimes mocking.

Mourning, explored in Kiss Away the Pearly Drops, romantic desire, identity construction, are depicted with offbeat fervor, like a series of disorganized thoughts. The result is an extremely introspective and unique sound, blending nostalgia with whimsical innovation. Products of a disillusioned generation torn between countless aesthetics, subcultures, and other micro-identities, Pearly Drops provides the perfect soundtrack for escaping into a sacred nature, far from a dizzying—and ordinary—reality.