hypersongs

Jessica Pratt

A singer-songwriter from Redding, California who recorded On Your Own Love Again (2015) at home on a four-track, and whose "Back, Baby" became her most-streamed song after Troye Sivan sampled it in 2023.

Redding and San Francisco

Jessica Pratt was born in Redding, California on April 24, 1987 and raised by her mother, an astrologer, who played her Tim Buckley, X and the Gun Club. She learned guitar around fifteen on her brother's Stratocaster, practising with T. Rex's Electric Warrior, and began recording at sixteen on her mother's Fender amp and microphone. She is wary of being labelled strictly folk or freak folk and dislikes Joan Baez comparisons; critics have compared her instead to Joni Mitchell, Sibylle Baier, David Crosby and Karen Dalton.

In San Francisco her roommate was the brother of Tim Presley of White Fence, who heard demos an ex-boyfriend had put on Facebook and offered to release them on his Birth Records. The debut, Jessica Pratt, songs recorded in 2007 on analogue tape and produced by Craig Gotsill, came out on November 20, 2012 (Drag City says 2011), 40:58 long; its first 500 pressings sold out in under two weeks, and Pitchfork gave it 7.5.

Drag City, Mexican Summer and Here in the Pitch

On Your Own Love Again (Drag City, January 27, 2015, 31:34) was recorded at home in Silverlake in Los Angeles; she told Stereogum she used a Tascam 424 MK Portastudio in her tiny bedroom, having moved there and felt lonely. She toured as headliner and in support of Beach House, Panda Bear and Jose Gonzalez, and played the Pitchfork Festival in 2015. Quiet Signs (Mexican Summer and City Slang, February 8, 2019, produced by Al Carlson, 27:48) was her first album recorded in a proper studio, Metacritic 84.

Here in the Pitch (May 3, 2024, 27:14) was recorded between 2021 and 2023 at Gary's Electric in Brooklyn, produced by Pratt with Al Carlson, Matt McDermott and Peter Mudge, with Alex Goldberg on drums and Ryley Walker on guitar; Pitchfork gave it 8.8 and Best New Music, and Jeremy D. Larson called her music's greatest horologist. "Life Is" closed Chanel's Fall-Winter 2024/25 Haute Couture show, and she played The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in July 2024. She appears on A$AP Rocky's "Highjack" (August 2, 2024), which she called a fever dream, and A$AP Rocky told Zane Lowe she gave him a Portishead meets Stevie Nicks vibe. Setlist.fm lists her at the Union Pool on May 12, 2015, Bowery Ballroom in July 2024, the Bourse de Commerce in Paris in July 2025 and the Salt Shed in Chicago on September 9, 2025.

Albums

  • On Your Own Love Again 2015 · Drag City

    Her second album: nine songs recorded at home on a four-track, with Will Canzoneri on clavinet and organ.

Songs

  • Back, Baby On Your Own Love Again · 2015

    The first single from On Your Own Love Again, a nylon-string song that Troye Sivan sampled in 2023.

Sources

  1. Jessica Pratt (singer-songwriter), Wikipedia
  2. Jessica Pratt, Drag City
  3. Jessica Pratt discusses her surprising appearances on Troye Sivan and A$AP Rocky songs, Stereogum (2024-09-17)
  4. Here in the Pitch, Wikipedia