Natalie Prass – The Future and The Past

It’s been three quiet years since Virginian siren-songstress Natalie Prass burst onto the scene with her universally acclaimed self-titled debut album. A litany of ballads, breathily themed on shattered, confused, romantic ideals, ‘Natalie Prass’ struck a real chord with me at the time of its release, I remember, because I was going through a big break up, too, at the time, and I needed music that harmonised with the crunch of my breaking heart. Sigh.

Fortunately, time has, for the most part, cured me, and, in her newest release ‘The Future and The Past’, it’s clear that Natalie has licked her wounds and moved on, too. But, as women formerly scorned, both romantically, and politically, it’s also clear to tell that we’re all now well too aware that life, and love, is not all sunshine and unicorns all the time, even when the memories of our ex-lovers has faded into memory.

Natalie gets down into the groove right from the break of the first track, the lean slap-bassy rips of ‘Oh My’ and lead single ‘Short Court Style’ beat out an optimism, and she clearly proclaims ‘I can’t be without the love that I have found’ (steady on, sister!), signalling that she’s begun, in the process of the album’s creation, her new joy. Sonically, her voice and floating-in-the-rafters dreamy piano mixes could be likened to popular indie sweethearts Tennis, but the songs deliver a more upfront directness, even on downtempo ballad ‘Lost’ and the funkadelic ‘Aint Nobody’, even when jazzy beats and appropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘yeahs’ are peppered in all the just-right places.

‘The Future and The Past’ is a really pleasing, funk-filled collection of soft fierceness, the same soft fierceness of a lady that’s learned lots of life’s lessons the hard way but who’s evolved into a stronger creature because of them.

The Future And The Past is out now on ATO Records via [PIAS].

Review by Cherry Anna Brearley.