GO! #8 Hear Jessica Pratt Cast A Spell Over The Barbican Theater.

With her incredible four-piece band, Jessica Pratt provided some comfort after what we all witnessed the previous day.

Going back a few months to May, when I first had the pleasure of reviewing Jessica’s magnificent Here In The Pitch, I described the feeling of hearing it for the first time as a “profound sit-down effect.” In a similar vein, before getting myself over to the Barbican, I had been experiencing a few weeks away from gigs and, generally, without the joy of listening to anything with the same effect I mentioned earlier. It is to my absolute pleasure that Jessica Pratt has come back into town and knocked me down with something strong all over again.

On what I can only describe as the coldest night, she delivered a tour de force of a setlist that ranged from 2015’s seminal release On Your Own Love Again—including an encore of my absolute favorite song of the same name—to 2019’s exceptional Quiet Signs, which featured my highlight of the night, Opening Night. Its haunting piano reached the heart of everybody in attendance. It’s a testament to the captivation of the audience that nobody would dare compromise the beauty of the night by making so much as a whisper. On what I described as the coldest night, I doubt anybody left the venue without their heart warmed.

There is a singular moment every time you hear Jessica Pratt perform live. You allow yourself to be completely taken back by those songs from 2015 and 2019. Then, suddenly, you come to the realization that there is an entire selection of songs from 2024’s Here In The Pitch still to be sprinkled throughout the setlist. When I hear Jessica perform her newest songs, such as the lush Bossa nova of Better Hate, the reflexive sound of The Last Year, and introspective World on a String, as she did on this occasion, it sounds like the victory lap of a folk revolutionary who, since my first listen in late 2021, has continued to blossom in the most innovative of artistic ways.

Jessica Pratt continues to demonstrate the magic touch of an artist who has, in my estimation, earned the right to belong in the highest echelons of songwriters of her generation.