Heathered Pearls

Electronic project Heathered Pearls originated with Polish-born Brooklynite Jakub Alexander, whose prior immersion in the industry preceded any output under his own name. He handled management duties for Tycho while serving as music curator for the producer’s ISO50 blog, performed as a DJ using the alias Aarnio, and directed A&R operations at Ghostly International, the same imprint that later issued his recordings. Early ambient leanings gave way to focused explorations of particular dance-music eras on the 2017 EP Detroit, MI 1997-2001 and then to denser arrangements on the intricate, glacial 2020 album Cast. Subsequent remixes preceded a joint EP issued with Braille under the Pleasure Jail moniker.

Ambient music first reached Alexander through his mother during his youth; although captivated by the sound, he rejected the “Pure Moods” associations that commonly surrounded it and set out to shape an alternative vision free of those tropes. While living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2004, he established the eclectic electronica netlabel Moodgadget with Adam E. Hunt, intending to spotlight “the diversity in electronically made music.” Numerous artists who appeared on the label later issued full-length projects through Ghostly.

After maintaining daily DJ-mix podcasts on ISO50 under the Aarnio name, Alexander issued his debut material in 2011 when the elusive EP compilation Polite Isle appeared under his legal name via the subscription-only digital platform Ghostly Music Service. Ghostly proper followed with the project’s first album, Loyal, in December 2012. Crafted amid personal anxiety and drawn from nocturnal hours spent beside the ocean, the hypnotic, soothing, melodic, loop-driven ambient work surfaced on vinyl and digital formats alone. September 2013 brought the digital-only Loyal Reworks, gathering reinterpretations by Terrence Dixon, Loscil, and Throwing Snow; Lawrence’s characteristically emotive, downtempo techno take on the material foreshadowed the direction of Body Complex, the second Heathered Pearls album, which arrived in August 2015 and included contributions from labelmates the Sight Below, Shigeto, and Outerbridge.

Scattered tracks from 2016 and 2017 preceded Detroit, MI 1997-2001, a four-track EP honoring the enduring underground Motor City club community that continued to influence Alexander. The third album, Cast, emerged in November 2020, merging the project’s signature slow-moving loops and cinematic atmospheres with an emerging spoken-word component; Alexander’s measured, gradually unfolding instrumentals were intermittently enriched by unscripted vocal passages from friends including Baltra, Nick Murphy, and additional collaborators. Remix EPs appeared across the following years, while the 2021 EP Love Has Boundaries documented further work with Braille under the alias Pleasure Jail.