Jess Williamson

Jess Williamson

The music is appealingly swampy, occasionally static in ways that recalls Amen Dunes and the spectral spin of Alice Coltrane, until Williamson’s voice bursts through the circle in an ecstatic push. The songs unfold slowly, but her intimate delivery and the minute explorations of her band draw you into the details. She asks her subject to suspend their fixation on the passage of time in “Forever,” and she’s asking us to do so, too — come and get lost and see what you can see.

Cosmic Wink was recorded in Dripping Springs, TX, at Duszynski’s property, where the band lived, worked, and cooked meals together for a week, with occasional breaks for wildflower gathering and loops through the cedar-spotted woods. Working from an intuitive feeling that it would take her seven years to establish herself musically, Williamson released her first two albums on her own Brutal Honest label, and intended to do the same with Cosmic Wink before signing to Mexican Summer.

Cosmic Wink is out May 11th – nearly seven years to the day after playing her first solo show — another quiet synchronicity. “I don’t feel like I’ve made it,” she says. “I feel like I’ve opened the door and walked through it.” On the other side? Everything the light chooses to illuminate.