From the moment her captivating voice hits the stage on opening track “Life Is,” Jessica Pratt Here on the ground recalls a vague memory, a memory that seems familiar, but distant.
Revered for her stripped-down style, Pratt sings with a quiet, understated voice that seems timeless, creating a sound that is both beautiful and eerie, and at times haunting. She reaches new heights on Here on the ground, her fourth and best album to date. The singer-songwriter will be heading to Madison with a performance at the Majestic on July 19.
A California native who moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles over a decade ago, Pratt points to Southern California’s particular influence on the album. She envisioned the recording as “big, panoramic sounds that make you think of the ocean and California.”
And that’s reflected in the atmosphere of Northern and Southern California, “which are very different places. They’re two different worlds to me,” Pratt says in a recent interview with Isthmus.
Looking back on the songs she wrote and recorded in San Francisco and early in her time in Los Angeles, “they almost seem murky, in a way that I associate more with Northern California.” Her more recent songs “feel a little sunnier or something, or maybe drier. When I listen to the music, it seems to evoke certain visuals that seem more associated with Southern California.”
She has always been drawn to ambiguity. Growing up in Redding, California, she remembers discovering love Changes forever in his mother’s eclectic library of CDs, cassettes and vinyl. The album’s enigmatic sound intrigued him – pop, beautiful and strange all at once.
“I was exposed to a lot of music as a kid that seemed intriguing and maybe had darker themes or feelings that were hard to put my finger on,” Pratt says. “Later, when I started getting into music around 13, I rediscovered those albums and it was like unlocking a strange memory. An extra layer of strange nostalgia on top of those strange qualities.”
These same qualities describe Here on the ground, an album heavily influenced by 1960s California pop. Pratt cites musicians like Tim Buckley and Pet SoundsModern-era Beach Boys as influences on Here on the groundShe also discusses her fascination with the Manson Family, a cultural influence that helped define the album’s distinctive sound during the recording process — an undercurrent that could be “walking around a certain place, especially living in Los Angeles, where every street has a piece of history that might be relevant to what you’re doing,” Pratt says.
Here on the ground The album is imbued with a certain dreamlike ambiguity. At 27 minutes long, it’s easy to get lost in the enchanting sound. “Life Is” opens the album with a gentle drum beat reminiscent of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.” On “World On A String,” she delivers a sunny pop chorus that could be mistaken for a Mamas and the Papas song. On “Better Hate,” the rhythm section backs Pratt’s vocals in a bossa nova style.
Surprisingly, ’60s pop and Los Angeles weren’t incorporated into the album’s sonic landscape until Pratt began the recording process. “Every time I’ve tried to predetermine what a song is going to be before I write it or record it, it’s never worked out well. It always feels forced,” Pratt says. “Once a song gets going and seems to be going in a certain direction, you can guide it with certain sounds that evoke a certain feeling, a certain place, or a certain time.”
Here on the ground The album was recorded at Gary’s Electric Studio in Brooklyn, New York, and marks Pratt’s second collaboration with producer Al Carlson (known for his work with St. Vincent). They were joined by Spencer Zahn (bass) and Mauro Refosco (percussion). Together, they experimented with varied instrumentation, layering everything from synths, brass, and percussion for the first time and enriching its hazy soundscape to achieve a 1960s pop sound.
“I didn’t necessarily visualize the drums in the pre-studio period, but once we had the gear in hand, certain influences and sounds started to come through a little bit more,” Pratt explains.
While Pratt and Carlson filled out the sound during the studio sessions, she never abandoned the gentle approach she’s known for: “The mystery of this process is what makes it intriguing and also organic.”
