“Late Bloomer, Baby” Liner Notes
by Sophia Valera Heinecke

“Beckoned to the gleaming of transformation by curiosity, I have always felt inspired by Kendall Perry's generative artistry. His embodied creativity is visible in every area of life: his willingness to collaborate across mediums, invent instrumentation, and motivate others to seize the day, no matter how uncertain. When Pearly arrived in Perry’s life, in all of our lives, it was with deep need and a kind of emergence that is integral to model in our current society.

Even in this debut glimpse, Pearly is at home among the titans of rock Americana, writing inventive, catchy, and culture-changing songs like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. “The spirituality of Wilson’s music is not something I think about too much, but it’s always with me,” Kendall noted leading up to the album release. Perry observes the heavy influence of Wilson's Pet Sounds, and the way it escalates past psychedelic to transcendent. Musical form elevates the content of falling in love with life on an endless beach.

Thinking of Brian Wilson's sonic and lived experience, I think of a person who desperately wanted to be free but could never overcome fear to find a singular identity connected to all life. “Pearly wants to be seen, wants to be visible, to amplify trans joy,” says Perry. The images in Pearly’s mythmaking always bring me back to the ocean, the “pearly boy”: grit transformed through time and friction into something precious, resilient, and yet ever natural, not forced like so much what underlies masculine American rock and roll. 

Evoking the work of Wilson and David Bowie, Perry's guitar build and action let him romp around in sounds simultaneously bold and tender. At the same time, the mastering from Amar Lal draws forth a consummate blend across nuanced soundscapes and more raucous progressions. Pearly brings out confidence in his own life and the lives of others, giving us specific insights that feel universal in their triumph and challenge. In the song “Boygirlhood,” he sings, “No matter what the world may say, keep finding your own way.” This wayfinding is a process articulated in the product of the album.

The single on the album “Late Bloomer Baby” is an origin story for Pearly, a take-off point sonically and lyrically sure to awaken the feeling of flight that will keep the song on repeat. A chorus sounds off at the song's end, reflecting on this line and how audiences are asked to participate in Pearly’s live shows, singing, “perennial I aim to be, perennial I aim to be.” When asked about the development of the single into its final form, Perry notes that the group element was natural and necessary. After “singing his heart out all day”, his singular and newly transitioned voice was feeling the strain in the upper register. The outro chorus was amplified not by production tools but by the voices of producer Oliver Ignatius and drummer Caro Moore, who harmonized along.

Perennials are a category of flowers that don’t bloom through the entire growing season but have specific conditions that awaken their full potential. They live to return and evoke an eternal, blossoming, endless transformation.

Flowering is all about species survival. It is a complex process involving multiple interacting components, with no one factor solely responsible for initiating bloom. Deeper rhythms of the earth, maturity, and light quality play an interactive role in blooming. You can sense these factors in the organic and thoughtful choices made by bandmates Magda Kress on bass and Caro Moore on drums, and produced and engineered by Oliver Ignatius.

Many metaphors and accumulated observations are seamlessly integrated into Pearly's songwriting style, yet they are so cohesive. In the aesthetic stylescape, an iconic mixing of representations -  denim, pearls, white leather fringe, and glamorous eye embellishments - feel so at home together. These symbols of the function and status of American life are reinterpreted into points of access for all people. “Every choice is a conduit to get even closer to myself, ” says Perry. In his reality as a working artist and in the persona of Pearly, the feeling is one of uplift as he finds and shares a “purpose that I find in things bigger than myself” in music.

Liner notes Written by Sophia Valera Heinecke

CREDITS

Music/lyrics: Pearly
Guitars/vocals/tambourine: Pearly
Bass: Magda Kress
Drums: Caro Moore
Mellotron/piano/guitar: Oliver Ignatius
Vocal harmonies: Pearly, Oliver Ignatius, Caro Moore 
Produced/Engineered/Mixed by: Oliver Ignatius 
Assistant Engineer: Brian Ducey 
Recorded at: Holy Fang Studios 
Mastered by: Amar Lal of Macro Sound