Natalie Prass

Raised in Richmond, Virginia, singer/songwriter Natalie Prass launched her professional path from her chosen base in Nashville, where she devoted several years to supporting fellow performers through co-writing sessions and backup vocals before striking out independently in 2009. Her fragile songbird tone and refined approach to composition produced a distinctive palette that blended Dusty Springfield’s blue-eyed soul with Harry Nilsson’s witty pop orchestrations, all recast in her characteristically restrained manner.

Two self-released EPs, Small & Sweet in 2009 and Sense of Transcendence in 2011, came before her first full-length record, which was tracked in 2012 yet held until 2015. Back in Richmond she reconnected with longtime high-school acquaintance Matthew E. White, the artist and producer whose retro-focused Spacebomb Records supplies complete ensembles of players and arrangers for its projects. Alongside White and arranger Trey Pollard, Prass guided the Spacebomb collective through the creation of her poised, brass-and-string-laden debut at a Burlington, Vermont studio during 2012.

Label obligations to previously booked titles kept the finished album in storage for a time. While it waited, Prass toured as a member of Jenny Lewis’ band and kept developing fresh solo songs. The extended delay only heightened anticipation, so that when her self-titled debut finally appeared in January 2015 it arrived to strong critical notice.

Following a year of road work behind that breakthrough, Prass booked studio time for a successor. The 2016 presidential election prompted her to discard the earlier batch of songs; in the ensuing months she wrote an entirely new collection marked by emphatic feminist themes and a defiant, celebratory spirit. Once more working with White and the Spacebomb team, she shaped The Future and the Past, replacing the debut’s expansive orchestrations with a tighter, groove-driven approach. The album surfaced in early 2018.