Jess Williamson carries a distinctive voice. The Texan singer-songwriter can unleash astonishing power with a full-throated, gut-wailing cry that carries a hint of that high-lonesome yip. This isn’t exactly news if you’ve spent any time following her work, but it shines through even more on her new track “Hum Of The City.”
Williamson is a couple of days away from releasing A Mile South Of Heaven, the album she cut with producer Shooter Jennings, and she’s just adopted a highway-like push for the record’s promotion. We shared the early singles “Goodbye To All That” and “Tracking The Tropics,” and they’re strong. But she really goes for it on “Hum Of The City,” a mythic country ramble built entirely around her enormous voice. In a press release, she explains:
I’m kind of a wanderer by nature, and this song is about my complicated relationship with the idea of home. I’ve spent years feeling pulled between the excitement of life in the city and the peace of a more rural life, never quite sure where I belong.
There’s a romance to being in hotels alone. I love checking into my room, going down to the hotel bar, and talking with the bartender. I once checked into a hotel and realized I was staying in the very same room I’d been in years earlier (room 12, from the song), during a completely different season of my life, right before a major life change. There’s something uncanny about the anonymity of a hotel room holding such a personal memory.
The song imagines a conversation with the hotel bartender, asking him to change the music. Sometimes contemporary music feels a little weird if you happen to have history with the person singing it. But old country music always hits.
This one lands, too, whether or not you have a history with the person singing it. Director Rocco Rivetti shot the video in golden-hour light above Los Angeles. Check it out below.
A Mile South Of Heaven is out 10/9 via New West.
