OPEN & DOWNLOAD

I hear the train a’coming, opens Kate Prascher’s new album. Whether it’s a line of  foreboding or one of anticipation, she leaves up to the listener. The rhythm kicks up like a storm. Heading home? Or far from it? On her sophomore offering, co-produced by Diana Walsh (Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell, Wild Rivers), Prascher draws the line between one place and another—one life and another—gossamer thin. It’s a strange train, she sings, repeating, It’s a strange train.

Prascher was raised in Memphis, a childhood spent amidst the haphazard heart of blues music and the haunted spirit of Southern storytelling. “Where I’m from, it’s expected for the people in your life who’ve passed to show up again, one way or another” she shares. No Depression once described Prascher as “a mesmerizing singer whose traditional-sounding tunes upend any feeling of comfort with lyrics that cut deep, giving her keenly observed tales an uneasy edge.” That eerie elegance illuminates her new album; it’s an openness to the mysteries of existence, and to whatever awaits us beyond. Prascher spins it into a spell on album standout, “They Will Fall Down.” Time is coming fast / When the stars won’t last / They will fall down / Scatter around / La da di da. Performed as a waltz, the song is an embodiment of Prascher’s willingness to dance with the unknown, her voice ringing with its own unearthly sparkle. She keeps her head held skyward on “Retrograde,” a lullaby for any phase of struggle, astronomical or otherwise. Fire it’s burning with chills / You wander far as it spills / If the stars come piercing / When mercury’s done reversing / But oh, return.  

Elsewhere, Prascher attends to the earthbound, as on the album’s title track “Sunday Afternoon” about an undeniably human instinct—to hide. “It’s about those moments in life when you’re failing yourself, maybe others too,” Prascher shares. “When you can’t seem to step away from something that’s not good for you, and you don’t want to confront the person who knows you best, the person who’s going to ask the hard questions.” Her lyrics are plainspoken and heartrendingly recognizable: I didn’t feel like coming Sunday afternoon / I didn’t feel like coming down to you. Resigned and vulnerable, she invites a listener to glimpse her pain—and perhaps in doing so, see their own. 

When Prascher was eighteen, she moved from Memphis to New York City, and discovered a vibrant bluegrass community across the boroughs. Up until that point, her relationship to music-making had been regimented—music lessons, vocal training, theater. The loose, democratic nature of jamming appealed. “I immediately knew I had to find a way in.” Prascher took mandolin lessons from Michael Daves (Nonesuch Records) who’s known for his work with Chris Thile and Steve Martin, and frequented open sessions across the scene’s essential venues like the Jalopy, Sunny’s, and Mona’s. She reveled in the community’s sense of freedom, of safety to try new things—“it all felt really alive”—and began to discover her own sound. It’s an evocative blend—the classic country soprano of Allison Krauss; the dark, dusty Americana of Gillian Welch; the bright melodicism of Madison Cunningham. Prascher released her debut full-length ‘Shake The Dust’ in 2024, drawing critical praise from tastemakers at Bandcamp, Atwood Magazine, and Glide Magazine among others. 

Prascher wrote about half the songs on ‘Sunday Afternoon’ while she was living in Brooklyn—the rest, after she’d left. “I’m interested in how environment informs identity,” she shares. “Leaving New York was a reckoning for me. I moved there out of ambition. If I left, could I still consider myself ambitious?” Now based upstate, she’s grateful for the opportunity to answer that question. “My life is less about chasing one thing, and more about grounded rituals, the practices of work and creation. I can hear myself more clearly. I know what I want to say.”   

‘Shake The Dust’ rattled with tumult, a work of internal momentum. ‘Sunday Afternoon’ is also full of motion, but forward—assured and stable. In her observations of transience—across physical, spiritual, and celestial planes—Prascher offers comfort, her crystalline vocals hanging in the air like fog. “I don’t find a connection to the other side sinister at all,” Prascher says. “It’s strange, of course. But it’s joyful.” 

Jubilee / Jubilee / Jubilee / Jubilee.

OPEN & DOWNLOAD

press: maddie@luckybirdmedia.com

label: maddie@firstcityartists.com

general: katepraschermusic@gmail.com