What does it sound like?:
Natalie Prass possesses a fragile, feminine voice. On this, her debut, it is swept along by Schmilsson strings and topped by ripe, cherry horns. Over nine songs, she delicately and gracefully picks the bones of a failed relationship. It is a delicious, featherlight confection, cleverly disguising the splintering in her heart.
Matthew E. White, her old school chum, provides the label, Spacebomb, the orchestra, the brass and the producer. I doubt it is entirely altruism as the retro smokey-soul sound suits the house style precisely. The quality of the writing and performance should easily repay his investment. It’s a pity the album was shelved for two years whilst White promoted his own Big Inner, yet poor Natalie is left with a window of only a few months until he releases his follow up.
In the meantime, please don’t overlook this little gem. It takes a confident, precise performer to pitch such emotional vulnerability against a swelling thirty-six piece orchestra. I am sure by the year end, there will be few albums so coherent, so luscious and so effective in impact.
What does it all *mean*?
If proof were needed, here it is; well constructed albums of pain often confound misery and uplift the soul.
Goes well with…
A fabulous stereo. Natalie sounds great on my little mp3 but she is breathtaking on a serious bit of kit.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
Beautiful, heartbroken ladies with strings.
Natalie Prass – Bird Of Prey
Looking forward to hearing it, I ordered it last weekend and await its arrival – along with a ton of other CDs; it’s my first haul of 2015 after being temporarily short on cash post Christmas!
The list of albums-to-buy grew impossibly long…if the first months are anything to go by this year should turn out to be sensational (and bad for my bank balance)!
Ah, our first disagreement!!
At first I was swept along by the buzz of publicity and the hype of many adulatory views.
As you say, Tiggs, beautifully produced, quality hi-fi.
But, oh but, her voice after repeated listening grates and the lyrics often wander off into banality.
For me a major disappointment…
Henpetsgi? Do I know you? :-} Did you have another name in the ‘old’ place?
(Of course, I fully respect your views, even if you are wrong).
Welcome back Tiggs!! Can’t abide the strings but the voice is quite sweet.
She’s my new musical crush. I love it. The strings, her easy movement between fragility and strength and the overall feel of part stax and sprinkling of Philly in parts has me swooning. ❤️
Hi Tiggs! Very good to see you. 🙂
I have this but haven’t got round to it yet; you’ve moved it to the top of my list.
Beautiful, heartbroken ladies with strings. ….oh, good.
Great to have you back Tigger. We really missed you on the “lifeboat”.
Ms Prass is one of my first big favourites of the year too.
My personal experience of heartbroken ladies is that they all too often come with quite a few strings attached!
This site’s only been back 24 hours and it’s already getting expensive. Thanks for recommending this, I’m off down the record shop…
Lovely to see you again Tigger. Will have an explore on Ms Prass. Listening to the clip I’m hearing strings sounding like a 70’s cop shop & a voice I find slightly irritating & I keep coming across Ms Prass & mistaking her for Jessica Pratt, who I’ve recently discovered, thanks to her connection with White Fence. If yer a Joanna Newsome fan you might like. Otherwise you’ll probably find her immensely annoying. I like ‘er. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnKZ_ZdXp6o
It certainly is great to see the Tiggerlion byline again!
I must admit I haven’t heard the Natalie Prass album.
What new American records from 2015 am I currently grooving to?
Well, I quite like the debut album by North Carolina’s Jake Xerxes Fussell (great name!).
http://www.paradiseofbachelors.com/products-page/contemporary-releases/pob-17
The album’s 10 tracks are all pretty obscure traditional US folk/blues songs that have been given the Fussell treatment. The album has extra guitar by Afterword favourite William Tyler, who also produced the record. Thoroughly enjoyable, and worth investigating. And it’s on a small US label that you can ALWAYS trust to put out interesting stuff: Paradise of Bachelors.
Now … let’s see if I can insert a picture here…
Cop shop? Cop show, I meant. Doh!
I can see how her voice can irritate some ears. At times it resembles Newsome in the Milk-Eyed Minder days, which was very definitely an acquired taste. However, the lush setting actually gives the album an edge. Whatever you think of the lyrics, she is confronting difficult emotions, rejection, betrayal, grief. The musicianship is superb. By the end of it, I feel comforted but as though I’ve been wrung out by the gentle hands of an angel.
It’s great to see everybody! I’ve missed you all.
It must have been a very strange three months for you Tigger. Nice to see Locust is already back too. Hallo Vasastaden!
!
Hallo Kärrtorp!
It’s been a strange few months, but I did get a lot of things done…!
I like the album a lot, although I think the White’s Big Inner album is a superior thing. This album is lovely though. My favourite bit – can’t remember the track title – is the dubby brass that kicks in on one track. It’s a lovely little moment, more than a little bit Saint Etienne actually, and makes me wish there were more moments like it.
With a Trojan avatar, you have to like dub, simonl. There are a variety of styles within the basic template of strings and horns. There’s the Little Touch Of Schmilsson, the Al Green soul and the full-on Hollywood show tune.
I’m all about the dub for sure. It’s a lovely album, although I think the Frazey Ford album from last year does the Willie Mitchell sound better. That Matthew White is a good producer though, although very much a headphone sort of sound if you know what I mean.
I’m liking it a lot too Tiggs. It’s all in the arrangements innit. A pretty average voice but the settings carry the day with immense charm.
It’s good to be back. I’ve so missed you, Pencil. Mwoah xx
TOUR KLAXON (hey, what happened to the little title bars for comments?)
She is playing the Thekla in Bristol on the 26th June, so presumably some other dates around the country (and maybe Glastonbury?)
Still unsure of the album and the reference points in this thread are a good example of why – I love the Matthew E White album, but cannot stand Joanna Newsome and all her works….
She played in London the other week. Only found out about two days before and it was already sold out.
Tigger! It’s good to see you, old chum.
The Prass album is wonderful – I don’t hear Joanna Newsom, but the fingerprints of White are absolutely all over the record, and I prefer it to Big Inner, which I never quite got on with.
While I’m here, I shall tip my hat to my three great musical joys of 2015 so far (already covered over in the other place, but repeated again for your singular benefit):
(i) The new Father John Misty album is a thing of tremendous beauty. Every other track is a gem, he has a wonderful voice, the arrangements are terrific and the lyrics are ace. Superlative soup! Here’s “Bored in the USA” being performed on Letterman back in November – quite simply the best song anyone has written in years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIFrG_6fySg
(ii) Clark by Clark. OK, it came out last year, but I only caught up with it a couple of months back, and it has rocked my Burial-loving soul. Here’s “There’s A Distance in You”. Be sure to hang on for the bit at the end where the whales start crooning.
(iii) A Matter of Scale by Stand High Patrol. If Clark has been taking care of those darker sounds, Stand High Patrol have brought the sunshine. Here’s “Ruckus”.
Hello Bingo, good to see you again. Clark made my top ten of 2014.
John Misty is quite the kettle of fish. My New Year resolution was to stream before purchase. I have a fluctuating relationship with I Love You, Honeybear. At first, I thought it too clever by half and a bit snide (Malaprops is actually pretty nasty). Then, the cleverness won me over with the idiosyncratic, unusual lyrics backed by really strong musicianship. Next, the musical jokes (a sudden laughter track, a mariachi band and an overwrought orchestral swell) became twee. But, finally, the musical variety and his sheer frankness convinced me, even though no-one likes a smart-arse. He covers a wide, ravaged emotional landscape on this album and it demands repeated listens.
What is it with drummers these days? They aren’t satisfied with providing a backbeat from a corner of the stage. They want to get out up front and lead. Who’d have thought the drummer of Fleet Foxes could sing so beautifully?
Heh @ “no one likes a smartarse”. He is definitely that.
Worth taking a look at those “Bored… ” lyrics in full. I fell in love with him round about the point of “How many people rise and think/oh good, the stranger’s body’s still here/our arrangement hasn’t changed”. If he never wrote another line that would do me.
How many people rise and say
My brain’s so awfully glad to be here for yet another mindless day
Now I’ve got all morning to obsessively accrue
A small nation of meaningful objects they’ve gotta represent me too
By this afternoon I’ll live in debt
And by tomorrow be replaced by children
How many people rise and think
Oh good the stranger’s body’ s still here
Our arrangement hasn’t changed
Now I’ve got a lifetime to consider all the ways
I grow more disappointing to you as my beauty warps and fades
I suspect you feel the same
When I was young I dreamt of a passionate obligation to a roommate
Is this the part where I get all I ever wanted
Who said that
Can I get my money back
I’m just a little bored in the USA
Oh just a little bored in the USA
Save me white Jesus
Bored in the USA
They gave me a useless education
A sub-prime loan on a craftsman home
Keep my prescriptions filled
And now I can’t get off but I can kind of deal
Oh with being bored in the USA
Oh just a little bored in the USA
Save me president Jesus
I’m bored in the USA
How did it happen
Bored in the USA
That’s an issue for me. His lyrics are quite brilliant but they look better on the page than they sound in the ear. At least they do today.
I reckon I’m going to wrestle with this album all year, changing my mind about it every week or two. I have a feeling I’ll relish every moment I spend with it. It’s a long time since an album caused me so much turmoil (I See A Darkness to be precise)!
Im also a little underwhelmed by Ms Prass. I loved the premise and all the blurb leading up to the release but have been very underwhelmed. It hits a lot of the right ‘notes’ and is of course beautifully arranged but the voice and the songs just not up to it.
There are a number of girl singers in the ‘Dusty’ retro style who for me are doing it much better including the ubiquitous Rumer of course. My favourite from the last few years though is Kristina Train’s ‘Dark Black’ with the excellent Martin Craft (M-Craft) playing the Matthew E Wight role.
If we are noting new wimmins, please let me tout Susanne Sundfor, with that baltic crossed out O, delightfully old fashioned modern sound,that’s 80s btw.
Well, I like it!
She’s great, isn’t she. Proper banging pop music.
Hey Tigger, I have the album and 8 of the 9 tracks are really good. However the last one is dreadful. It sounds like some Judy Garland/Disney pastiche and is totally out of kilter with the rest of the album. She does have great promise though.
At first, I agreed with you. Its sentiment is hopelessly, joyfully in love, whereas the rest of the album is about the perils of love gone wrong. However, I now hear it as a dream of idealised love, of how love should be. I find myself surrendering to the Hollywood schmaltz and enjoying it for the fairy tale it is.