Quiet Signs
The third album from the LA-based master of timeless acoustic folk is an exercise in restraint. Yet despite its minimalism, there\'s emotional heft: While her 2015 album *On Your Own Love Again* followed the passing of her mother, the end of a relationship, and her upheaval from San Francisco to LA, these songs deal with her putting off a return to San Francisco after falling in love with musician Matthew McDermott (who plays piano on the opener here). The nine songs are compact and rooted in Pratt\'s voice, evoking 1960s French yé-yé singers or Nico, as the chamber pop of short numbers like “Fare Thee Well” and “As The World Turns” lulls with gentle flutes and soft strings. It\'s an intimacy that\'s distinct from any of her singer-songwriter peers, veiled behind a sense of old-fashioned mystique.
For her third album Quiet Signs, Jessica Pratt offers up nine spare, beautiful & mysterious songs that feel like the culmination of her work to date. "Fare Thee Well" and "Poly Blue" retain glimmers of On Your Own Love Again's hazy day spells, but delicate arrangements for piano, flute, organ and strings instill a lush, chamber pop vim. The record's B-side, meanwhile, glows with an arresting late-night clarity; the first single, "This Time Around," pairs the Los Angeles artist's intimate vulnerability with a newfound resolve. Ultimately, this confidence is what sets Quiet Signs apart from Pratt's previous work, the journey of an artist stepping out of the darkened wings to take her place as one of this generation's preeminent songwriters.
The Los Angeles folk musician’s third album is her best yet—a collection of hushed reveries that unspool like daydreams.
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California singer-songwriter’s third LP is full of hazy emotional landscapes with dark shadows
Throughout her catalog, singer/songwriter Jessica Pratt's music all but vanishes into its own shadow, the presence of her murmuring vocals and airy nylon-string guitar so faint that songs melt into each other or simply turn to mist.
The quiet but powerful LA folk artist Jessica Pratt returns with an endlessly replayable collection of vintage songs on her third album Quiet Signs.
As a musician, Jessica Pratt is an enigma. She's a thirtysomething, slight folk singer who grew up on '80s cowpunk like X and the Gun Club....
Freak folk songstress Jessica Pratt leans in on Tropicalia; the '60s hybrid of Brazilian and African rhythms fused with pop. Hallmarks of odd time signatures and unconventional song structures are already idiosyncratic to Pratt's songwriting.
When you first hear California singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt’s voice it somewhat disarms and disconcerts you. It doesn’t really fit into a
'Quiet Signs' marks a significant departure for L.A. singer Jessica Pratt, whose first two albums’ finger-plucked traditions were rooted in time and place.
'Quiet Signs' by Jessica Pratt, album review by Matthew Wardell. The singer/songwriter's forthcoming release comes out on February 8th via Mexican Summer
The LA musician has beefed up her acoustic sound but lost nothing of her ethereal qualities on this magical album
Sometimes simplicity truly is the best route to take, and the uncomplicated nature of Pratt’s music affirms that she shines in this arena.