Posts Tagged ‘Sorceress’

JESS WILLIAMSON – ” Sorceress “

Posted: May 16, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Jess Williamson Photograph

The Texas-born, L.A.-based singer and songwriter Jess Williamson makes deeply felt songs that orbit around her powerful voice, a voice that’s strong and vulnerable, big room flawless, quietly ecstatic, and next-to-you intimate. In her most recent work, “Sorceress”, that voice is surrounded by a deep-hued kaleidoscope of dusty ‘70s cinema, ‘90s country music, and breezy West Coast psychedelia.

While attending the University of Texas, Williamson began to find her footing as an artist in the DIY and student-run art and music spaces of Austin. A photojournalism major, she interviewed and photographed bands for the school newspaper and hosted a radio show on KVRX, the student-run radio station. But quietly, she had an insistent pull to pursue music herself. In her last year of school, following an impulse after seeing Austin’s Ralph White play the banjo at a house show in her friends’ basement, Williamson took up banjo lessons at South Austin Music, and soon after was writing songs and making home recordings. After graduating, she moved to NYC to attend an MFA Photography program at Parsons. But after a couple semesters, she realized the call to pursue a career in music was too big to ignore, and she dropped out. She started a band in NYC called Rattlesnake with another friend from Texas: Williamson played banjo, her friend played electric guitar, and they both sang. They played their first show at the now defunct venue, Death by Audio, in March of 2010. A few months later, drawn to her larger hometown community, she moved back to Austin to focus on her solo project.

Her fourth album, “Sorceress”, also with Mexican Summer, arrives 2020. It was written in Los Angeles, recorded at Gary’s Electric in Brooklyn, and finished at Dandy Sounds in Dripping Springs, where she recorded Cosmic Wink.  While she’s stayed true to her deep country roots, the music has grown in its ambitions. It’s her biggest, most assured collection to date, and a true document of the hard work paying off. About two-thirds of the way through the title track on her new album, Jess Williamson sings, “Yes, there’s a little magic in my hat / But I’m no sorceress.” Agree to disagree. Williamson is, at the very least, bewitching on Sorceress, her fourth album. It’s a blend of folk and country, with a dash of psychedelic rock, that brings together the strongest elements of her previous work—all the hints and glimpses of something deeper musically, and vocally, that never felt completely explored—into a fully realized collection of 11 songs that are at once polished, precise and visceral.

Jess Williamson – from the album ‘Sorceress’ out May 15th on Mexican Summer.

 

JESS WILLIAMSON – ” Wind On Tin “

Posted: February 27, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, night and closeup, possible text that says 'Out May 15th SORCERESS Jess Williamson'

Jess Williamson released her third album, Cosmic Wink, in 2018, and she’s preparing to follow it with a new one tilted, “Sorceress”, due out on May 15th via Mexican Summer. The first single, a folky, psychy singer-songerwriter track, she says, “grief has a way of making the veil between worlds very thin. Prior to the memorial service, I was sitting on a porch passing around a guitar and drinking beers with a few very dear people in my life who I look up to greatly and who were very close to the person who had passed. We heard an unexplainable sound in the wind that made us all pause. Like a flute, but more angelic. It kept going. We tried, unsuccessfully, to record it. The sound was indescribably beautiful and heavenly. “Were the angels singing just for us, or is that what the wind out here does on tin?” Regardless of the answer, I know that for that brief moment we were lucky initiates into the mystery realm, and I’m deeply grateful.

Williamson says, I’m thrilled to announce that Sorceress, my new album, will be out May 15th on Mexican Summer. We are living in the midst of an occult revival. THE WITCH: in the not too distant past she was abhorred, executed, or at the very least – kept underground. It’s 2020, and she’s gone mainstream. We have witnessed the meteoric rise of astrology apps, Tarot, crystal lifestyle brands, and smudge kits for sale alongside fast fashion. Magic is something that can live in chaos and make use of chaos, and these are uniquely chaotic times. Many of us are seeking a higher power, something to hold on to, to keep us afloat. Some look for it in these mystical realms, others seek it in spirituality or in traditional religion, some pursue it in material success or in romantic relationships, others are caught (understandably) in such muddy, murky waters that even the brightest beacon of light won’t get through, and far too many of us give away all of our energy trying to be that light. Technology – quite the modern trickster – makes all of this somehow more and less accessible to us. This record is me sifting through some of these modalities, thinking about and questioning our spiritual impulses, and exploring the different ways we try to cope.

That said, I am but a mystically inclined fumbling observer. Yes, there’s a little magic in my hat – but I’m no Sorceress.
Today, I’m sharing the first single, Wind on Tin, – streaming everywhere now – along with a music video and a month of tour dates across this great nation. Sorceress was produced by me, with co-production contributions on various songs from Shane Renfro (who I also co-wrote a track with), Dan Duszynski, and Al Carlson. We all played on it, along with Josh Jaeger and Dan Iead. It was recorded by Al at Gary’s Electric in Brooklyn NY and Dan at Dandysounds in Dripping Springs TX.