On her album Perlemor (Mother of Pearl), Norwegian singer/composer Aggie Frost outlines portraits of women who have every opportunity, but who get lost in their too-high demands of themselves. Perfectionism and over-thinking combine with the anxieties of age catching up with you, making the yearning for escapism and the carefree life ever stronger.
Perlemor is part of a larger project, where text, movies and songs are interwoven. The album, which was released digitally in May 2022, is presented as a hybrid concert performance that had its premiere during Festspillene i Nord-Norge (True Northern Arts Festival) on the 27th of June 2022. We get a taste of the visual aspect of Perlemor in the music video for the song «Nattebyen» («City of Night») (attached).
 
The Tromsø-based artist Aggie Frost is a staple of Nordic electro-pop. She says of the Perlemor project:
 - I think people will be surprised at the new direction.
She has a new perspective on songwriting, and the lyrics are honest and personal, and reflect her age and her current parental role. The tension between the artist and her role as mother is part of the essence of her new work. An urge to subvert expectations.
Her lyrics center on her adult life, the expectations and pressures that go along with it, and that collide with the ideals of the 90s generation that Aggie herself is a part of.
Perlemor is a space to vent frustrations, as much as it is a space for experiments with warm, analog synthesizers, strings, ambient sounds and field recordings, as well as challenging textures and dark, electronic beats.
 
Aggie Frost made her name with the electronica duo Frost, along with her musical partner Per Martinsen (Mental Overdrive). They made their mark on the late 90s and early 2000s with their dark and unique pop. The music was especially noteworthy for hypnotic drum beats, frosty synths and Aggie's luminous vocals. The albums Bedsit Theories (1998) and Melodica (2003) were defining moments for Frost. As Aggie now returns as an artist, she has one foot planted in that past, but with her gaze firmly turned forward.
 
- Perlemor is about roles, expectations, happiness and longing. It's about dealing with adult life, being a parent, and being torn between various expectations. It is also about escaping from your own bubble of isolation, says Aggie.
 
On the self-produced Perlemor, Aggie Frost displays her new lyrical perspectives within the framework of timeless electronica. This time around she sings in Norwegian, in her local dialect. The soundscape is perhaps more welcoming and melodic than before, yet she retains much of the aesthetics of the club culture she originally came from. Aggie adopts the stortytelling strategy of the singer-songwriter, while at the same time keeping that cool, Nordic electronic sound. Sonically, Chromatics, Sonic Youth and the 80s synth sounds of Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys are useful references.