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Jess Williamson: The Big Empty

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Austin’s Jess Williamson continues her glorious journey into the void

Sometimes, it’s what you don’t say—or play—that matters. In the case of Jess Williamson, it’s the vacancies that lend tension and texture to her lonesome, weather-beaten take on confessional songwriting.

“I’m always thinking about how space can be another voice or another instrument,” she says. “You want to listen closer to a whisper than a shout.”

Unflinching self-examination informs Williamson’s new release, Heart Song (Brutal Honest/Kartel). Yet there’s something universal—and not especially precious or even personal—about a pivotal line like, “Is freedom really nothing left to lose?/Is freedom something that I have?/Something that I have, with you?”

Central to the groggy allure of Heart Song’s seven songs are the twists and turns mapped out by Williamson’s malleable vocals and the atmospheric six-string meanderings of RF Shannon’s Shane Renfro. “I’d been playing with this band for almost a year before the album was recorded,” says Williamson. “This was the first time I could write a song on my own and bring it to them, and we could flesh it out together.”

About two years ago, Williamson returned to her native Texas after an acknowledged “freakout” in New York City, where she’d been working toward a master’s degree in photography at Parsons School Of Design. “I remember the exact moment of realizing, ‘What am I doing here?’” she says.

A romantic breakup was involved, so it’s no surprise that a sense of dislocation and loss pervades her 2014 debut, Native State. So frayed does Williamson sound that you’d never know how excited she really was be to back in Austin—or that she’s basically a fun person. In fact, one of the most disarming things about talking to Williamson is how upbeat and optimistic she is about almost everything—even her own failings.

“Nobody’s perfect—I’m not perfect—but I’m generally a pretty happy, stoked person,” she says. “I just haven’t found inspiration from that place yet.”

—Hobart Rowland