Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from Redding and Los Angeles, based in Los Angeles, California. She works in folk and freak folk, with a style also associated with acoustic and psychedelic folk.

Early life and musical beginnings

Pratt is born in 1987 and grows up with a broad range of music around her through her mother, including Tim Buckley, X and the Gun Club. She starts learning guitar at about 15 after her older brother stops playing his Stratocaster, and she begins practising on that instrument with Electric Warrior by T. Rex. She is soon able to play the guitar parts across the whole record. She begins recording songs at 16, using her mother’s Fender guitar amp and microphone.

Recording career

After moving to San Francisco, Pratt is introduced to Tim Presley’s solo project, White Fence, through Presley’s brother, who is her roommate for three years. Presley later hears her demo recordings through her then-boyfriend, who posts her songs on Facebook, and he contacts her about releasing her music. Her self-titled debut album comes out on Birth Records, a label founded by Tim Presley to release Pratt’s music. Produced by Craig Gotsill, it includes songs originally recorded in 2007 on analogue tape. The first 500 pressings sell out in less than two weeks and the record draws attention from music websites and magazines including Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound and PopMatters.

Subsequent releases and style

Pratt announces the studio version of the song “Game That I Play” in 2014, then announces her second album, On Your Own Love Again, later that year. In 2018 she announces her third album, Quiet Signs, and releases a video for “This Time Around”. Her music is described as using picked acoustic guitar and raw, bending vocals, while drawing on 1960s folk, California classic rock and early 2000s freak folk. She is often compared with Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Sibylle Baier, David Crosby and Karen Dalton, and she expresses admiration for Ariel Pink.