motel void

Pearling is a Scottish music producer, performer and visual artist making waves with her otherworldly ethereal-pop sound. Inspired by the dreamlike, hypnotic chaos of dream pop and shoegaze artists combined with her passion for experimental electronic music; Pearling creates an ethereal world of feminine theatrics, bubbling with twinkly synths and sincere lyricism.

MOTEL VOID: Your music feels very immersive, almost otherworldly. When you begin working on a new track – for example your new single Baby the Clouds will Kiss You – do you start with a visual world in mind, or does the sound come first?

PEARLING: As soon as I begin writing songs, I start imagining in my head the visual world surrounding it. I have a really vivid imagination and I find it really helps me finish songs because I want to find out how the visual story develops through the music. I guess the sound and the visuals always walk hand in hand for me, they wouldn’t be the same without each other.

MOTEL VOID: Is your new single going to be part of a new album, or is it a standalone release?

PEARLING: My new single is the sister single to ‘Treasure’, a song I put out in November last year. They both have a lot of thematic parallels and also sonic ones too. I knew they belonged in the same world so I wanted them to be intertwined, even having some visual crossover in both of their music videos! Who knows though, both tracks could be part of something larger coming at the end of the year…

MOTEL VOID: You produced, mixed and mastered your debut EP Celestia, Deep Sea Diver entirely in your bedroom. What were the biggest challenges of creating everything independently?

PEARLING: There’s a lot of freedom to creating everything yourself but obviously a lot of challenges too. It’s difficult trying to do 6 people’s jobs as one person and it was super time consuming but it also meant that I was able to put out that EP completely on my own terms, which was really special.

MOTEL VOID: The EP surpassed 500,000 streams while being completely self-made. Did you feel any pressure after that success?

PEARLING: I definitely did feel some sort of pressure once I had released Celestia, but to be honest, the success of that EP was quite slow and gradual so I’ve always had faith that the music doesn’t have to be an instant success streaming wise for it to be appreciated as time goes on. I think the pressure mainly can come from social media, trying to keep up with a TikTok audience once you’ve made one and dealing with the ever changing algorithms – but it’s all fun and games really!

MOTEL VOID: In today’s streaming-driven landscape, do you ever feel tension between creating experimental, atmospheric music and the pressure to make something more algorithm-friendly?

PEARLING: Honestly, the strangest songs of mine have done well and have completely defied the laws of “the algorithm”. I released a song a few years ago called ‘Swan Tooth’ that was an experimental, ambient soundscape track with basically no vocals and weird gurgling sounds…and that song did great on TikTok! I think you have to trust yourself and what you want to put out in the moment and the rest will follow.

MOTEL VOID: You’re part of the Scottish electronic scene – how would you describe it right now? Are there any emerging Scottish artists we should be paying attention to? Do you have any favourite venues in Scotland to perform in?

PEARLING: The Scottish electronic scene has changed a lot in the past few years, but it’s always vibrant and full of new, interesting artists. I really like the band ‘Texture Texture’ who make weird textural synth pop with poetry on top, they are very cool. Also – KOPI O is making some of the most interesting sounds in the city right now, I love their work.I played my first ever gig at this tiny venue called The Hug and Pint, I really love it in there – even though it’s always so cramped on stage, there’s some fun challenge in finding ways to perform on tiny stages that I enjoy!