\n<\/p>\n
Jessica Pratt<\/a>\u2019s new album, \u201cHere in the Pitch,\u201d begins with a <\/strong>vintage drum beat, a gently strummed guitar and a lot of vibey room tone \u2014 the kind that recalls a wood-paneled studio from 60 years ago. \u201cThe chances of a lifetime might be hiding their tricks up my sleeve,\u201d she sings on \u201cLife Is,\u201d<\/a> in an enchanting melody that rises and falls with ease. \u201cTime is time is time again.\u201d<\/p>\n Pratt is 37, and over three albums since 2012, she has become known for seemingly bending time. \u201cA friend of a friend was stunned to find out that Jessica is a modern artist,\u201d Matt McDermott, <\/strong>Pratt\u2019s partner and collaborator, said over the phone. \u201cHe was convinced that she was a lost private press folk artist from the \u201960s or \u201970s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that she\u2019s hung around a lot of record stores and is very into the texture and atmospherics of older music means that her stuff appears somewhat anachronistic,\u201d McDermott added, amused. \u201cThere\u2019s that boomer saying, \u2018They don\u2019t make songs like they used to,\u2019 but Jessica\u2019s music argues that you actually can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On a rainy March day in New York, Pratt strolled in the Queens Museum and discussed how \u201cHere in the Pitch,\u201d due Friday, has roots in the history lurking beneath another city: Los Angeles, her home since 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf you want to get metaphysical about it, it\u2019s layers of human experience that may still be reverberating,\u201d she said, thinking about the prehistoric ooze that burbles under Wilshire Boulevard. \u201cThat is absolutely the lens through which I see my reality every day, as swimming through these unseen layers of history and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Slight and blond, Pratt was wrapped in a shaggy coat atop a slinky black suit. Though she has stopped embellishing her large eyes with industrial-strength liner, even Pratt\u2019s au naturel <\/em>look tempted the notion that she somehow does have one foot in a retro netherworld. In conversation as in song, she has something of an obsession with time, which she posits could be a result of her writing process: \u201cIf you feel like you\u2019re always fighting against yourself in order to achieve your goals, you are conscious of time passing because everything feels very belabored, artistically.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Pratt grew up in Redding, a small Northern California city <\/strong>with a complicated relationship to Christianity<\/a> and conservative<\/a> politics. Her family was comparatively freewheeling: Her mother, who raised her, was an astrologer and music obsessive. Pratt began writing songs as soon as she learned a few rudimentary chords, penning impressionistic songs inspired by the Incredible String Band and Leonard Cohen on a thrift store nylon string guitar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After high school, she moved to San Francisco, where she began performing her songs for the first time. <\/strong>Tim Presley, a prolific California musician and artist, heard a few of her recordings and founded a label to release what would become Pratt\u2019s namesake 2012 debut. \u201cPart of me was surprised that he was into it,\u201d Pratt said. \u201cBut that\u2019s maybe typical for me to be very self-critical.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly before the record\u2019s release, as Pratt\u2019s relationship of seven years was disintegrating, her mother died of a sudden illness. With little anchoring her to San Francisco, she packed up for Los Angeles. It was a rough landing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Pratt spent her first months alone, recording her next album, \u201cOn Your Own Love Again,\u201d from her bedroom while living modestly off savings and a publishing deal. That 2015 album\u2019s breakout single, \u201cBack, Baby,\u201d<\/a> remains a balm for the brokenhearted nearly a decade later; the pop singer Troye Sivan sampled it on his 2023 album, \u201cSomething to Give Each Other,\u201d and gushed in a Guardian interview<\/a> that Pratt\u2019s voice \u201ccould have existed forever.\u201d The album\u2019s double-tracked vocals and enveloping warmth cast melancholic solitude in a romantic glow. But the reality was that Pratt\u2019s isolation wasn\u2019t good for her physical and emotional health, and she spiraled downward.<\/p>\n By mid-2016, on the verge of a breakdown and struggling to write, Pratt decided to return to San Francisco. A whirlwind romance with McDermott, a former co-worker at Amoeba Records, shook her out of her stupor. <\/strong>She dedicated herself to \u201cQuiet Signs,\u201d her 2019 album, which she described in retrospect as \u201chaving to do with daily tragedies of trying to survive your own mind. It feels very whispery and ethereal in a way that I can\u2019t necessarily relate to now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cQuiet Signs\u201d was filled with <\/strong>sparse guitar, rich textures and <\/strong>tape hiss, and was Pratt\u2019s first time working in a studio. She was curious to expand her sound, however modestly, and approached the process with an open mind. \u201cThere was more conscious intention,\u201d she said, \u201cnot just the sheer impulse to make music.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Eager to reunite with Al Carlson, who produced \u201cQuiet Signs\u201d with her, Pratt started working on a new series of songs that were influenced by the Beach Boys\u2019 \u201cPet Sounds\u201d and the music of the \u201960s group the Walker Brothers. \u201cI\u2019ve always been very interested in that micro era of \u201960s pop music where the production is atmospheric like a snow globe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Carlson said he noticed a change in Pratt\u2019s intentions. \u201c\u2018Quiet Signs\u2019 was trying to tap into the old world that she had created in the past while slightly looking forward,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cShe was more confident in exploring new directions on this one, even if that meant leaving a lot of stuff on the cutting-room floor.\u201d<\/p>\n Pratt began writing \u201cHere in the Pitch\u201d in early 2020 amid the heightened anxiety of the pandemic, and fueled her fascination with its themes of fear and power by reading books about Charles Manson and watching films with complex antagonists, like \u201cNo Country for Old Men.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the dark side of things,\u201d she said somewhat wryly.<\/p>\n Pratt described herself as a \u201crather anxious person,\u201d yet carried herself with a quiet reserve that never registered as awkward; she seemed open, though proved elusive in retrospect. During our time at the museum, she used her phone only once, to snap a photo of a souvenir yo-yo from the 1964 World\u2019s Fair that shares a name with one of her new songs, the elegant \u201cWorld on a String.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHere in the Pitch\u201d is sequenced like the sun creeping across the notorious Spahn Ranch. Early tracks like \u201cLife Is\u201d and the bossa nova-tinged \u201cBetter Hate\u201d possess an unsettling cheerfulness bordering on delusion, then the album descends into an uneasy twilight where fear is a shadowy companion. Its closer, \u201cThe Last Year,\u201d is a curtain call with a cautiously optimistic chorus: \u201cI think it\u2019s gonna be fine\/I think we\u2019re gonna be together\/And the story line goes forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOf all the songs on the record, it\u2019s probably the most personal,\u201d Pratt said. \u201cThe most me coming through lyrically and emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n McDermott, who has played keys with Pratt since \u201cQuiet Signs\u201d and contributed production on the new LP, said her devotion to her music is always paramount: \u201cJessica arrived in the city and holed up. We were there for two months, and she was rarely seen outside of the studio. Friends of ours were like, \u2018I haven\u2019t seen Jessica yet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The sessions, spread out over two years, incorporated a cast of musicians beyond Pratt\u2019s inner circle for the first time, including the percussionist Mauro Refosco and the bassist Spencer Zahn. \u201cExperimenting with sound in the studio with instruments and players never felt appropriate for my music until this time,\u201d Pratt said. \u201cEven a little woodblock was a big change.\u201d<\/p>\n Every new detail, however modest, required time to find its proper place within Pratt\u2019s increasingly widescreen vision. \u201cI\u2019m very specific about what needs to be done, probably to a degree that is difficult for those around me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like striving toward perfect imperfection, it\u2019s all instinct.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor better or worse,\u201d she added, \u201cit\u2019s always drawing blood from a stone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n