054 :: JESSICA

FEATURING Jessica Pratt by Asher White, released by Joyful Noise Recordings in 2026, a reimagining of Jessica Pratt by Jessica Pratt, released by Birth Records in 2012. Listen (Asher White / Jessica Pratt) / Buy direct (Asher White / Jessica Pratt) "Night Faces" (Asher White / Jessica Pratt) "Casper" (Asher White / Jessica Pratt) TRANSCRIPT How soon is too soon for hagiography? How soon is too soon to pay homage to a living artist? How long must one wait before an album can be considered enough of a classic that you would be justified to re-record the whole thing and put your own spin on it? I hadn't pondered these questions before hearing this album, but if you had asked me, I probably would've said longer than fourteen years. But here we are, in 2026, listening to a reimagining of an album from 2012, the original by an artist who is still alive and still releasing new music, and this version by an artist who is new on the scene and only thirteen years their junior. On paper it seems like it should be a fool's errand. But in fact, it's an astounding success, and achieves this remarkable thing: showcasing the original as the masterpiece it always was, while at the same time transforming it into something radically new. Which is to say, it's doing what any good cover song should do. And since it's not really possible to fully appreciate a cover without also knowing the song being covered, let us take a moment to switch over to the source. Immediately it's like I'm hearing this music anew. As many times as I've listened to this album before, it's as if I'd never heard it for what it was. The songs themselves are so potent that it's easy to forget just how stripped bare they really are. In juxtaposition to the version we were just hearing, the original now seems like a ghost, a pale shade, a wispy specter whistling in the wind. But no, this is the genuine article; this is the music in its original form. This is all that the younger artist had to go off of and take inspiration from. But it's easy to see why they would be so inspired. With its wobbly, double-tracked vocals and delicate fingerpicked guitar, it's like this music is conjuring a spell, speaking to the spirit world, or perhaps speaking from it, and making everything feel like a dream. And this version is like that same dream made vivid, buzzing with the same magic, but channelling it in new directions, like it's letting its spirit loose on the full spectrum of sound. But this new version isn't just about putting a maximalist spin on some acoustic folk ballads. It's also happy to shift into its own moments of stillness and delicacy. And truly, what I love most about it is that you really have no idea where it's going to take things, or what new sounds it's going to bring in. Sometimes it's as simple as the original: just a voice and an arpeggiated accompaniment. Sometimes its additions are subtle: a click or a single sustained tone. And sometimes it swells into this warm, lush arrangement that just feels like the natural embodiment of the song's ghostly essence. And sometimes it leans in to the song's inherent hypnotism, as these little bells quiver, jangle, and reverberate. And sometimes it decides to blow the whole thing apart. I'm not even sure I like this turn to noise. But I appreciate how it recognizes a capacity within the original to contain such wreckage – how it sees that behind its muted performance there is an uncanny power – a power that can be unleashed. It's not showing us how the original was always meant to be. It's showing us how it could've been. It's showing us that it was always a thing of wild energy – that it's always been electrifying, even if it wasn't electrified itself. It all leaves me with an even greater appreciation for just how elusive these songs really are. They've always struck me as lyrically enigmatic, but really they're just generally enigmatic, shifting shape as you try to pin them down, and going out of focus as soon as you get them in view. And maybe it's no coincidence that the lyrics so often dwell on dreams and the midnight hours, because that in the end is how I've come to think of these songs: as hazy, late-night dreams, floating mystically from one artist's imagination, now through another's, and finally to our own.