Pearl Charles 
Embracing the fluidity of the ‘70s, and a freedom from the constraints of genre, the latest album from Pearl Charles crystallizes the vision that she’s built over the past few records. Her first for her own imprint, Taurus Rising, the new record Desert Queen dips through country, pop, disco, and rock, tied together with silk scarves and a bolo-tie boogie that’s caught in the radio waves between Linda Rondstadt, Fleetwood Mac, Boney M, and Gene Clark. The album opens under the hot lights and stage sparkle of “Does This Song Sound Familiar?” creeping into view with the slow slink of dry ice in darkness. Buoyancy carries the dizzying sway of “City Lights” through the speakers, lost in the disco ball sparkle of string swells, honeyed harmonies, and rubber ball bass bounce. The record doesn’t always stay so sanguine, though, often dwelling in the shadows of closing time. “Step Too Far,” and “Smoke In The Limousine” are draped in the nuance of night, and even with their gilded embellishments, they can’t help but let in the embrace of loneliness.
Classic signifiers light up the licks on “Middle of the Night,” a vamped rock heel turn that commands the stage with the confidence of a legacy act. Co-production by Charles’ partner and foil Michael Rault finds both artists feeling comfortable in their own skin. Released from the examinations and expectations of a label, the two are free to send listeners on a tour of the connective tissue of pop’s past picking out influences from both sides of the soil — radio hits sewn up with private press edits. More than a few tracks here could easily fool some fevered collector looking to find cutouts from the 45 bin but Charles doesn’t hold so tightly to pastiche as much as she conjures an aura. Holed up in their Joshua Tree studio, the pair enjoy the kind of freedom to wander that used to require the ability to bankroll a French mansion and team of managers to keep label creditors at arm’s length. Swerving from Swedish platform pulses to the cusp of the Canyon and the tarnished brass bluster of Muscle Shoals, Desert Queen is free range pop at its best, a sterling example of letting vision over committee take the wheel.
Support the artist. Buy it HERE.