Natalie Prass - Side by Side EP

Pitchfork 72

Let me be the first to formally apologize for accidentally contributing to the execrable proliferation of analyses that Natalie Prass sounds like "a Disney princess." This writer was in attendance for a show where she took a moment to defend herself from the claim, which was followed by a not-sober fellow yelling out an unprintable word and the name of this website, a moment that made at least one person in the vicinity feel very uncomfortable. You can understand how she would take it as a backhanded compliment: There's something unavoidably infantilizing about the suggestion that your voice resembles a fictional cartoon monarch's, even if Snow White could really sing.

It makes her sound so… formal, too, and while Prass makes music inspired by classic artists like Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick, she's no traditionalist. Covers of modern musicians like Janet Jackson and Ryan Adams have snuck their way into her sets, and she even popped up on the AV Club last month to turn the gory chug of Slayer's "Raining Blood" into an inside-voice delight. Side by Side shows that playful side, comprising two live cuts of songs from her self-titled solo debut, as well as covers of Grimes, Anita Baker, and Simon & Garfunkel, artists whose only obvious connection is "singers that Natalie Prass decided to cover on her new EP."

Her take on Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" does away with those awesomely '80s gated drums and sparkling filter sweeps, instead pushing the tempo and adding guitar for something a little more lively. On the original, Baker welcomes the listener with open arms through some magical doorway, where the evening of a lifetime awaits. Prass sings from a more present place, like she's three beers into a muggy summer night at a Nashville bar. She makes the gentle folk-rock of "Sound of Silence" a little more lively, nailing those melodies with her graceful, nimble voice. "REALiTi" is done as a straight up ragtime jaunt, and if her press release commentary on the cover ("[Grimes is] probably going to say 'what is this jazz shit' and hate it") is maybe a little too accurately self-deprecating, she at least commits.

The live versions of "My Baby Don't Understand Me" and "Christy" strip away the dense orchestral instrumentation and let a Wurlitzer piano do the driving. The arrangements are cleaner, and show her mastery over negative space. One knock on the self-titled record was that Prass sometimes sounded secondary to the orchestra, but here the same can't be said. My favorite moment on the original LP was at the end of "My Baby Don't Understand Me", where the repeated refrain of "our love is a long goodbye" built to a grand climax. On the live take, she lets the groove ride a few seconds longer, transforming the swelling romance into something steamier.

Similarly, the nighttime vibe of the unadorned "Christy" precludes all future Disney princess comparisons, as she lets the lonesomeness of the lyrics ("Why does it have to be that she can take the hand of anyone she meets?/ Still, the only one she sees belongs to me") really sink in. In this, Side by Side does what a good EP should—it reminds us of what she's skilled at, while showing off some other strengths. There's even something like a mission statement to her music in the title, and the song it's taken from: "When I feel the magic of you/ The feeling's always new." It's an old sentiment, and the lyric belongs to another artist, but Prass makes it hers.