Jess Williamson - Heart Song

Pitchfork 77

Native State, the 2014 debut record by Jess Williamson, depicted the Texan singer/songwriter’s journey back to her home state from a stint living in NYC, ditching the city and its discomforts for the wide-open country of her heart. Driven largely by banjo and other folksy instruments like dobro and dulcimer, Native State’s sound lumped Williamson into a loose constellation of mournful, folksy musicians, despite the fact that her spindly, spine-tingling voice took her songs in places most of her supposed peers would never dare to go. But Heart Song, Williamson’s sophomore effort, raises the question of how native Native State really was, as it finds her ditching bucolic Americana and returning to a place of urban malaise that feels far more natural for her.

What remains unchanged is Williamson’s stunning voice, which remains as compelling and remarkable as it was on Native State. Her rich, lip-curled contralto has an uncanny familiarity to it, hitting a spot somewhere between Cat Power and Angel Olsen, with moments of early Joanna Newsom’s yawp. But the way she wields this voice is unique. On Native State, that voice often seemed set off in opposition to the rustic instrumentation, but on Heart Song everything seems fused together as one.

Her writing, while evocative in any setting, feels more suited to these ominous all-night-diner/on-the-road soundtracks than to porch-mystic musings. Opener “Say It” captures this transition well, conjuring a quasi-Lynchian vision of a weary, wary woman conversing with a lover: “We could do better than this cheap motel/But somehow here I feel the most like myself.” On the slowly unfolding and percussion-less “Snake Song”—which references Will Oldham’s apocalyptic folkie forbearer Palace Brothers with the lyric “There is no one what will take care of you”—Williamson offers the sharp line “I have made friends with those too jealous to let the love come in/And I’ll never talk to them again even if I again talk to them.” Each track relies heavily on reverb-soaked electric guitar lines, a stark simplicity that works in tandem with Williamson’s soaring, interrogative voice.

The atmosphere on Heart Song is so strong and captivating that it pulls the more experimental moments into the center as well, like the mariachi deathsong closer “Devil’s Girl.” The best first-person storytelling manages to exist both inside and outside of the narrator’s head, a state which Williamson achieves deftly with cleverly written—and most importantly, delivered—lines such as “It’s evil how the best men I know are in and out of hospitals/Fighting some devils/…. Well maybe I am just the devil’s girl.” “Devil’s Girl” is actually an older song of Williamson’s, but the music been recast for Heart Song, scrapping the previous bluegrass/folk trappings in place of something rawer and more emotive.

At only seven tracks, Heart Song feels almost too brief. Its ghostly instrumentation and measured pace distort your sense of time in a manner similar to stark classics like Songs: Ohia’s Didn’t It Rain. Williamson has evolved subtly over her two records, and Heart Song lifts her finally and definitely out of the world of “folk” into something deeper, more uncanny, and out-of-time. Heart Song never tires nor loses its tension, as if Williamson’s voice has finally found its proper milieu.