Composer/guitarist Yasmin Williams' Nonesuch debut album, Acadia, her most sonically expansive work to date, is nine original, mostly instrumental tracks written and produced by Williams, and features her on various guitars, banjo, calabash drum, tap shoes, and kora. She is joined by an eclectic cast of collaborators—including Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone, Dom Flemons on rhythm bones, Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, William Tyler on guitar, and others—creating a folk music that reflects the wide range of musical influences that have inspired her throughout her life. "Yasmin Williams treats her guitar like a playground," says NPR Music, naming her its Breakthrough Artist of 2021, noting the “joy and possibility she brings to the guitar.” Songlines calls her “an original, a genuine trailblazer, one of those rare musicians who challenges your preconceptions about the possible.”
Composer and guitarist Yasmin Williams releases her new album, Acadia, on October 4, 2024, via Nonesuch Records. The album, her Nonesuch debut and her most sonically expansive work to date, comprises nine original, mostly instrumental, tracks written and produced by Williams, and features her on various guitars, banjo, calabash drum, tap shoes, and kora. Williams is joined on the album by an eclectic cast of collaborators—including Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone, Dom Flemons on rhythm bones, Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, William Tyler on guitar, and many others—creating a folk music that reflects the wide range of musical influences that have inspired her throughout her life. The album track “Virga,” featuring Darlingside on vocals, whose sound NPR calls “exquisitely arranged, literary-minded, baroque folk-pop,” and Nashville-based experimental ambient/jazz multi-instrumentalist Rich Ruth on synth, is available today and may be heard here:
Discussing the song “Virga,” Williams says, “A virga is a meteorological phenomenon where streaks of rain hang from a cloud and evaporate before reaching the ground. I related this sentiment to how it feels for me to be an artist in an industry that doesn’t seem to always value art and reflection. I eventually realized that I needed to learn how to thrive ‘in virga,’ so to speak … to learn to be okay with feeling slightly suspended in time, with my hopes and dreams dangling in an environment I have no control over, never fully having my feet planted on the ground.”
Of the album, she adds: “Acadia has several meanings: a place of rural peace and pastoral poetry (Italian), a refuge or idyllic place, (Greek and Italian), fertile land (Mi'kmaq), a place of plenty (French) ... all of this relates to the ethos of this album. The songs are seeds I planted, and the seeds grew into the album, Acadia: a place of peace, a place where creativity can blossom, a place where everyone can fit in together and collaborate effectively, a place where the fruits of my own labor in music can fully flourish without judgment or prejudice. One of my visions for this record was to expand the potential for current folk music to encourage collaboration across various genres. Blurring those somewhat arbitrary lines has been a natural tendency for me since I started writing music at twelve years old and Acadia is a full circle moment.”
Yasmin Williams has received critical acclaim from outlets such as Pitchfork, which included her in its list of 25 New and Rising Artists Shaping the Future of Music in 2023, and NPR Music, which named her its Breakthrough Artist of 2021, saying: “Yasmin Williams treats her guitar like a playground. She taps the wood of the instrument, fingertaps the fret—on other songs, she taps dance shoes, plays the kora or a thumb piano while playing the guitar.” The outlet further noted the “joy and possibility she brings to the guitar … This music goes back to Black blues guitarists; she’s reclaiming, but she’s also staking her claim at the same time.”
“Williams … is one of the country’s most imaginative young solo guitarists," says the New York Times. "[Her] radiant sound and adventitious origins have made her a key figure in a diverse dawn for the solo guitar.” Songlines calls her “an original, a genuine trailblazer, one of those rare musicians who challenges your preconceptions about the possible.” Pitchfork proclaims: “Williams' approach to the instrument allows her to confound expectations, making you question the source of each overtone and rhythm.” The Guardian says: “Special kudos to whoever booked Yasmin Williams [at Glastonbury]. She may not be a huge name (yet) but anyone who’s feeling a bit fragile can’t fail to be soothed by the guitarist’s magical and innovative style. The result is so fluid and sparkling, it just pulses with life. She creates acres of space, then fills it with busy refrains that reach ever skyward. Or she crafts sparkling, fraught, kaleidoscopic helixes of sound.”
A native of northern Virginia, Williams began playing electric guitar in eighth grade and quickly moved on to acoustic guitar, finding that it allowed her to combine fingerstyle techniques with the lap-tapping skills she had developed, as well as perform as a solo artist. Williams’ influences include the smooth jazz and R&B she listened to growing up, Hendrix and Nirvana, go-go and hip-hop. Her love for the band Earth, Wind and Fire prompted her to incorporate the kalimba into her songwriting, and she has also drawn inspiration from other Black women guitarists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Algia Mae Hinton. On her previous album, the highly acclaimed Urban Driftwood (SPINSTER, 2021), Williams referenced the music of West African griots through the inclusion of kora and by featuring the hand drumming of 150th generation djeli of the Kouyate family, Amadou Kouyate, on the title track. Last fall, she released the Acadia album track “Dawning,” featuring Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, Kafari on rhythm bones, and Nic Gareiss’ percussive dancing.
