Jessica Pratt

Gorgeous folk music, beamed in from the dark side of the Californian dream. 

Beautiful and mysterious, Jessica Pratt only needs her nylon-stringed guitar and a mic to envelop you in a dream. Over the last 12 years, the Los Angeles artist has carved out a reputation as a singular voice in folk. Inspired by bossa nova, psychedelic chamber pop and the ballads of Scott Walker, Burt Bacharach and Judee Sill—she writes songs that feel like winding the window down on an ocean-kissed drive. Her impressionistic lyrics and breathtaking vocals are intimate yet elusive. Right next to your ear but arriving from some dusk-lit distance.

On Pratt’s latest album Here in the Pitch she’s stretched out into an even more panoramic sound. Timpani, glockenspiel, baritone saxophone, and flute are layered alongside her vocal arrangements. She’s bringing her ensemble to the acoustically honed confines of Melbourne Recital Centre for RISING across two intimate shows.

About Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt has become one of the most singular and distinctive songwriters of her generation, largely through the bewitching sound of her acoustic guitar and vocals: a mystical, elusive blend that conjures deep emotional responses from her devoted (and patient) audience. To introduce her first release in half a decade, Pratt comes as close as she ever has to the feeling of perfection with Here in the Pitch. To music you can reach out and touch in the air around you, to summoning with every note the hope and mystery, the horror and romance, that lingers within the silence. Through these songs, she suggests those qualities are precisely what keeps us listening, over and over again, on the edge of our seats.