Video: Jessica Pratt, ‘This Time Around’

Daiana Feuer on October 24th, 2018

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Thank goodness for MySpace. Truly. If White Fence’s Tim Presley hadn’t stumbled upon some demos Jessica Pratt recorded in San Francisco that her then-boyfriend posted on his page, it’s quite possible she wouldn’t have pursued music at all. But then again, it seems impossible for this gentle songbird’s story not to have taken off in one way or another. Presley started a label, Birth, just to release Pratt’s first self-titled album in 2012. After moving down to Los Angeles, Pratt wrote her next album, “On Your Own Love Again,” in her small apartment, and it was released by Drag City in 2015. It was a wonderfully mellow and melancholy collection of intimate melodies, and now she’s finally ready to release the next chapter, “Quiet Signs,” to be released Feb. 8, 2019, via Mexican Summer.

“On some level I considered an audience while making the last record,” she says, “But my creative world was still very private then and I analyzed the process less. This was the first time I approached writing with the idea of a cohesive record in mind.” To this end, “Quiet Signs” took a while. After writing the songs in L.A., she recorded at Gary’s Electric in Brooklyn, throughout 2017 and 2018, her first album totally recorded in a pro studio. In addition to Pratt’s voice and guitar, “Quiet Signs” includes flute, organ, and piano, contributed by co-producer Al Carson on some songs, as well as Matt McDermott on piano and string synthesizer.

First single “This Time Around” arrives in video form, directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick. Soothing and just sad enough, Pratt’s voice dips high and low around sparse rhythm guitar, with some affecting background instrumentation to fill in the shadows. Surrender to the gentle magic.

||| Watch: “This Time Around”