The Pointer UW-Stevens Point Student Newspaper
Jessica Pratt’s sophomore album “On Your Own Love Again” lures you in like the sound of a siren. Her follow-up to the self-titled release is a folk confessional that we can all relate to. It was released by Drag City Records earlier this year after Pratt recorded the album in her California home. Her contemporaries are that of Sharon Van Etten or Angel Olsen, but influences from Joni Mitchell and Nico are prevalent.
Pratt weaves together simple guitar riffs and breathless echoes to hit the listener in their empathetic core. The lyrics “you’re on the outside, you’re looking in” from the song “Moon Duo” depicts someone looking for something that’s never really there. Instead they must look in themselves for the answers they seek. 
The track “Jacquelyn in the Background” is about friendship and what it is like to share your thoughts with another person. The lyrics “leave your bad news for a while” are exactly what we’d all like to do when talking to someone close to us. The music mirrors the lyrics as she pairs acoustic guitar with soft electric chords that flutter seamlessly in the background.
In “Strange Melody,” Pratt pays homage to Duran Duran’s “Hungry like the Wolf” with the doo-doo-doo refrain in the most mesmerizing way. Her ability to transform a simple chorus and make it her own is remarkable.
Pratt’s “On Your Own Love Again” is a piece of art that was released well before, or after, its time. Every track has the sound of a tape reel running in the background. It calls for multiple listens to catch her short melodic stories. Your mind wanders while listening to this nostalgic album which causes a feeling within the listener that they probably had in another life, a previous life that I would like to think of myself as a sea-otter, more specifically, a sea-otter listening to 90FM.
Christina Luna
Contributor
cluna499@uwsp.edu
