Jess Williamson Time Ain't Accidental LP

Pitchfork 50 Best Albums of 2023 - Rated 44/50!

Endless prairies and ocean waves; long drives and highway expanse; dancing, smoke, sex, and physical desire – the core images of Jess Williamson's 2023 album Time Ain't Accidental revel in the earthly and the carnal.

After a protracted breakup with a romantic partner and longtime musical collaborator who left Williamson and their home in Los Angeles at the start of the 2020 pandemic, the album's reckoning with loss, isolation, romance, and personal reclamation signals a tectonic shift for Williamson as a person and as an artist: from someone who once accommodated and made herself small to a woman emboldened by her power as an individual.

A daringly personal but inevitable evolution for the Texas-born, Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Time Ain't Accidental is evocative of iconic Western landscapes, tear-in-beer anthems, and a wholly modern take on country music that is completely her own.

Above everything, sonically and thematically, this album is about Williamson's voice, crystalline and acrobatic in its range, standing front and center. Think Linda Rondstadt turned minimalist, The Chicks gone indie or even Emmylou Harris' work with Daniel Lanois.

Ringing boldly and unobscured, it's the sound of a woman running into her life and art head-on, unambiguously, and on her own terms for the first time.

In 2022, Williamson and Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee released I Walked with You a Ways under the name Plains; a critically acclaimed record filled to the whiskey-barreled brim with feminine confidence, camaraderie, and straight-up country bangers and ballads. After past records Cosmic Wink (2018) and Sorceress (2020), both released on Mexican Summer, Williamson felt primed to shift in a new direction. Revisiting what she loved growing up, simplifying her process, and making music with a friend proved to be the best step forward for Williamson.

"If you've been ghosted, if you've chased after an unavailable person, if you've been given crumbs when you need a full meal, 'Hunter' is a song for you," says Williamson of the album's first single. "I wrote it during a time when I was heartbroken over a breakup and experimenting with dating in Los Angeles. That era felt like being thrown to the wolves, but it helped me to see myself and what I really wanted more clearly. This song is an anthem for the true lovers out there, anyone who is hunting for the real thing."