JESSICA PRATT & JOANNA STERNBERG
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Jessica Pratt, with special guest Joanna Sternberg in support, will play at Union Chapel on Thursday 6th June.
The revered Los Angeles artist Jessica Pratt has become one of the most singular and distinctive songwriters of her generation, largely through the bewitching sound of her acoustic guitar and vocals: a mystical, elusive blend that conjures deep emotional responses from her devoted (and patient) audience.
Her forthcoming album 'Here In The Pitch' is her first release in half a decade, and she worked once once again with her trusted collaborators—multi-instrumentalist/engineer Al Carlson and keyboardist Matt McDermott—Pratt enlisted the rhythm duo of bassist Spencer Zahn and percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms for Peace) to help realize her vision. Pratt quickly envisioned a more expansive set of influences—“big panoramic sounds that make you think of the ocean and California”—and the results are evident in the dynamic repertoire of instruments accompanying her graceful, dreamlike melodies.
A sense of hope is clear in Pratt’s words, and it’s even clearer in her performance: placing her voice at the forefront and creating an emotional immediacy that sets this record apart from all her past work. “I never wanted it to take this long. I’m just a real perfectionist,” she explains of the album’s long gestation, which spanned from summer 2020 to the spring of 2023. “I was just trying to get the right feeling, and it takes a long time to do that.” With Here in the Pitch, Pratt comes as close as she ever has to this feeling of perfection, to music you can reach out and touch in the air around you, to summoning with every note the hope and mystery, the horror and romance, that lingers within the silence. Through these songs, she suggests those qualities are precisely what keeps us listening, over and over again, on the edge of our seats.
Joanna Sternberg is a singer, songwriter, musician and visual artist born/based in New York City.
In Summer 2023 she released their acclaimed new album, I’ve Got Me, on Fat Possum Records, which received the 'Best New Music' accolade from Pitchfork. Pitchfork wrote of the album, “Think of this album like an oblong version of Carole King’s landmark 1971 album Tapestry: Sternberg is presenting a new canon of inverted love songs, each one so sturdy and true that they could withstand being covered by the lowliest of bands and still sound like gifts.”
The songs on I’ve Got Me are a Bat Signal from Sternberg’s Manhattan Plaza spire: the middle income artists-only residency in Manhattan where Sternberg grew up and still resides. Some of Sternberg’s Manhattan Plaza predecessors include Charles Mingus, Tennessee Williams, Alicia Keys, and more. It is a massive, 46-story universe of living New York City history, artist families and legendary elders. There is no place like it. Returning to their family’s apartment, 40 stories in the sky, for what was meant to be a short stay, Sternberg wrote the songs for I’ve Got Me. This being 2020, and for reasons no longer necessary to explain, society went sideways, so Sternberg stayed up writing in the towers, and the stunning I’ve Got Me came out of their time up there.
Thelonious Monk said “a genius is the one most like himself”— in 2023 we’re lucky Joanna Sternberg knows the most vulnerable parts of themself well enough to make music that shows how strong each one of us can be. Sternberg’s got all this and more.
Book For A Pre-Show Dinner
Make your free dinner reservation to eat at our Margins Café before the show!
You must have a general admission ticket for the show to gain entry for dinner.
Doors will open for early dinner ticket holders at 18:00.
The Margins Café serves delicious, freshly prepared food at gigs and events. All profits go towards The Margins Project, based here at the Chapel which works with people who face issues of homelessness and crisis.
Book Your Dinner Reservation HERE
More Information:
The venue has unreserved seating and are taken on a first come first serve basis. Please arrive early before event door times if you have preferred seats. Due to the nature of our venue, please be prepared to queue for entry.
The venue is fully accessible, with use of ramps and the upstairs bar is accessible with use of a platform lift. Please email [email protected] with your accessibility requirements.
The bar is located on the first floor of the venue and will be open from the stated door time and remain open after the show.
Alcohol consumption will be limited to the bar area only, it is not permitted to take alcohol to the main chapel space. An array of soft drinks and snacks will also be available and are permitted in the main space. (Please note, no food or drink may be brought from outside into the venue).