Posts Tagged ‘Cosmic Wink’

JESS WILLIAMSON – ” Live At Paste Studio “

Posted: May 16, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Jess Williamson - Cosmic Wink

When Jess Williamson fell in love, the heavens parted. Cosmic Wink, is the Austin-based singer-songwriter’s third record, looks to the skies, but also turns inward. The album details a series of personal changes in Williamson’s life, including a new relationship, a move to Los Angeles, and the death of her beloved dog, Frankie. Produced by her boyfriend and collaborator Shane Renfro of the band RF Shannon, Cosmic Wink is a stellar rumination on time; the present, the future, and what happens when it finally runs out.

Williamson recently brought the lush, other-wordly sounds of Cosmic Wink for a studio session, playing three songs: “White Bird,” “I See The White,” and “Love on the Piano.” The album’s first single, “I See the White,” is a hazy and captivating reflection on Frankie’s passing. “I see the white all around her eyes,” Williamson sings, referencing the graying of Frankie’s fur.

“Seeing [Frankie] grow older was sort of this physical manifestation of the passing of time,” Williamson explained. “[I was] thinking about love and time and death and life, and everything in between.”

Cosmic Wink was created in close collaboration with Renfro, and it makes perfect sense that the couple would complement each other as writing partners. “I always thought that Shane was the best and most talented musician I knew,” Williamson gushed. “I just felt really lucky that he wanted to have such a heavy hand in making this album. It felt really natural.”

It’s no surprise that themes of sex and love permeate Cosmic Wink, but Williamson clarified that the record’s closing track, “Love on the Piano,” is not, in fact, meant to be literal. “My mom thought that this song was about having sex in various locations,” she laughed. “It’s not about that.”

1. White Bird 2. I See the White 3. Love on the Piano Watch Jess Williamson live @ Paste Studio NYC

JESS WILLIAMSON – ” Wild Rain “

Posted: May 13, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Cosmicwink

A reference to the Jungian idea of synchronicity, or “meaningful coincidences,” Cosmic Wink is as much a reflection on inspired companionship as it is a rebirth. Jess Williamson fell deeply in love, and then her life was uprooted; she left Texas for California, leaving behind the roadworn verses of her previous albums for brighter, bolder songwriting. The Byrds-ian jangle of album opener I See The White airbrushes halos around the brain with an immortal pop hook. When Williamson asks her listener to “tell me everything you know about consciousness,” it’s an invitation down a two lane blacktop, both vessels heading the same direction. The Rhodes-soaked Wild Rain begins with a ghostly air until a swell of synths gives way like the heavens parting. Williamson’s voice emerges from the clouds promising that she will “treasure your patience / from you I learned what it means to make a family.” Concluding with Love On the Piano, Williamson’s new musical and lyrical mind declares “Love is my name now / Love, Darlin” over an evolving acoustic guitar line and lightly pressed upright piano notes. Vulnerability can feel something less vulnerable when love – true, deep love – creates a latticework to hang the frame of our humanity, which in many ways is the message underlying the entire album.

Jess Williamson – Wild Rain From the upcoming album “Cosmic Wink” Available May 11th via Mexican Summer Records

JESS WILLIAMSON – ” Cosmic Wink “

Posted: May 11, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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On her third album, singer-songwriter Jess Williamson is a giant, throbbing valentine, so taken by her new romance that she has become tenderness itself. “Love is my name now / Love, darling” she coos at the top of “Love On The Piano.” It’s a far cry from where she left us with 2016’s Heart Song, a stormy, brutally beautiful collection of prose about gnarled matters of the heart. Cosmic Wink a journey, a reckoning, choosing a path, dealing with it, learning, growing, disappointing, finding, evolving, being cruel, being crueled, wildness, loving, turning toward, turning away, fool energy, finding, pleasing, past lives, future lives, soul mate, twin flame, Home, new Home, old Home, fate, luck, chance, new love, old love, Ancient love, being in love, being Love, being loved, Dream wisdom, death, rebirth, sacred everyday, sacred every damn DAY. Y’all…. this is my baby. Her name is Cosmic Wink. All my life she’s been waiting to be born and now she is finally here. Worldwide. Thank you

Jess Williamson – I See the White From the upcoming album Cosmic Wink Available May 11th via Mexican Summer Records

JESS WILLIAMSON – ” I See the White “

Posted: March 11, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Texan singer-songwriter Jess Williamson’s sophomore album Heart Song is not even a year and a half old yet, but Williamson is about to return with a new collection, her first for the label Mexican Summer. Named Cosmic Wink, it finds Williamson once more exploring a new chapter of her life in new surroundings while, appropriately enough, further broadening her musical palette.

The name Cosmic Wink is apparently a nod to the Jungian concept of synchronicity, summing up an album as rooted in an “inspired companionship as it is a rebirth.” Plenty of Williamson’s past work chronicled her experiences in and outside of Texas, her stints in other towns and the call of home and the anxiety of searching for new places. Cosmic Wink picks up where its predecessors left off, with Williamson having fallen in love and decamping to California. Across the album, she meditates on her new life, at times conveying her thoughts via folk-rock, other times bearing the influence of her new home by situating ruminative narratives in enveloping, warm compositions that recall stray elements of ’60s rock.

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Along with the announcement, Williamson has shared Cosmic Wink’s lead single “I See The White.” It’s a low key gorgeous composition, an acoustic rocker that sounds like a meandering, twilit journey down the beach that’s equal parts melancholic and joyous. Starting with the memorable line “Tell me everything you know about consciousness,” “I See The White” soon builds to one hell of an old-school pop paean of a chorus. Here’s what Williamson had to say about the song:

Love is at once so precious and so painful when we acknowledge how little time we have with the ones we love. Most of us walk through life like we will live forever. Since most of us have no memory of ever dying or being born, it’s pretty common for us to act like we are immortal. There are benefits to this way of living, but the dark side of that is it can lead to a lot of complacency. But start to notice the graying of your dog’s fur around her eyes, see the sun move lower in the sky, recognize that the wave you’re riding will one day descend, and see how your life starts to change when you inject a little more gratitude into your every day. This song is a love song and it’s also kind of me throwing a tantrum. It’s begging for answers and making a few demands too. I get it, life is short but our souls live on, right? So, I’m gonna need my sweetheart to come too, okay? And maybe my dog. Is that so much to ask? Musically, I wanted this song to feel joyful and pretty, because why shouldn’t we celebrate love alongside the tough questions? Life is wild and beautiful and sad and ecstatic all at once, and I wanted this song to be the same way. We might as well dance and sing and have fun with the time we have because we’re here and then we’re gone, and nothing lasts forever… or does it? 😉

“I See The White” also comes with a video by Eli Welbourne that alternates between matter-of-fact beauty and tongue-in-cheek reflections on mortality. Early on, Williamson serenades a skull and accidentally shatters an hourglass. Later, she dances on the beach and wanders LA.