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Yasmin Williams announces her third album, Acadia, featuring special guests Immanuel Wilkins, Aoife O’Donovan, Darlingside, Marcus Gilmore, Kaki King, William Tyler and Dom Flemons.
One of the most beautiful and original releases from 2021 was Yasmin Williams’ Urban Driftwood, an album described in these pages by Ericka Severyns as free from tradition, geography, and time, and Williams as a storyteller that makes the audience lean in to listen. It was great to see this album get the attention it deserved beyond her America and to follow with tours here in the UK and Europe, including co-headlines with fellow instrumentalist Gwenifer Raymond.
Williams has just announced her third album, Acadia, which is due for release on October 4th via Nonesuch Records, on which she is joined by a number of special guests (more below). Accompanying the announcement is her new single, Virga, her first track with lyrics.
Yasmin Williams on ‘Acadia’:
It’s my most sonically expansive work to date and features an array of accomplished musicians and friends including Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone, Aoife O’Donovan and Darlingside on vocals, Marcus Gilmore on drums, Kaki King and William Tyler on guitar, Dom Flemons on bones, and more artists who played phenomenally. I played several instruments on the album, including, but not limited to, many kinds of guitars, calabash drum, kora, and banjo. The sonic world of the album ranges from classically minded folk music to full rock with jazz influences and everything in between.
On ‘Virga’ she says:
The first single from the album, Virga, features Darlingside, whose music NPR describes as “exquisitely arranged, literary-minded baroque folk-pop” on vocals and experimental multi-instrumentalist Rich Ruth on synth. This song is the first I’ve ever released that includes lyrics.
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.”
Pre-Order Acadia: https://yasminwilliams.lnk.to/acadia
Williams brings her new music to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and the Evanston Folk Festival in Illinois in September, before embarking on a fall North American tour with Brittany Howard and Michael Kiwanuka and playing London’s Pitchfork Music Festival in November.
Current Tour Dates:
September 6 – Kennedy Center (DECLASSIFIED SERIES with Ben Folds, Madison Cunningham, Robert Thomas, and the National Symphony Orchestra) – Washington, DC
September 8 – Evanston Folk Festival – Evanston, IL
September 29 – The Met – Philadelphia, PA *
September 30 – Roadrunner – Boston, MA *
October 2 – The Capitol Theatre – Port Chester, NY *
October 3 – Central Park SummerStage – New York, NY *
October 5 – Chicago Theatre – Chicago, IL *
October 6 – Palace Theatre – St. Paul, MN *
October 8 – Mission Ballroom – Denver, CO *
October 10 – Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden – Boise, ID *
October 11 – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater – Troutdale, OR *
October 12 – Queen Elizabeth Theatre – Vancouver, BC *
October 14 – Britt Pavilion – Jacksonville, OR *
October 15 – Paramount Theatre – Seattle, WA *
October 17 – The Greek Theatre – Berkeley, CA *
October 18 – The Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA *
October 19 – Vina Robles Amphitheatre – Pasa Robles, CA *
October 23 – Stoughton Opera House – Stoughton, WI
October 25 – The Block – Muskegon, MI
October 26 – The Ark – Ann Arbor, MI
November 7 – Pitchfork Music Festival – London, UK
* w/Brittany Howard and Michael Kiwanuka
