It’s not often that a fingerstyle guitarist transcends their arcane niche. Yasmin Williams has managed to wander from the experimental underground and land under a bright spotlight. The Northern Virginia-based artist became interested in rock and metal after playing Guitar Hero 2 as a teenager. An innate knack for shimmering, melodic composition later became apparent as she tried to translate her riff ideas to the acoustic guitar. Williams went on to study Music Theory and Composition at New York University. She released her solo debut, Unwind, in 2018, shortly after graduating. In the years to come, Williams has toed the line between cosmic jam staple and ascending cornerstone of the folk circuit.

It feels contrived to reflect on a record put out during Covid lockdowns as a balm for that uneasy moment. However, Williams’ January 2021 release, Urban Driftwood, offered an undeniable breath of serenity for me as I whiled away a solitary quarantine in Los Angeles. Before even gaining an understanding of her technicality, I was immediately taken by the album’s transportive qualities. Thanks in part to its outdoorsy cover, Urban Driftwood allowed my mind to wander to a hypothetical Minnesota shoreline. It evokes drinking cheap coffee and watching the sunrise over a tree-lined horizon. Revisiting the album, I can’t help but smile as I remember what a bright spot it became for me during that absurdly bleak Highland Park winter.

Urban Driftwood slots nicely alongside pandemic era instrumental folk from the likes of North Americans, Adeline Hotel, and Chuck Johnson. Williams’ new full-length, Acadia, asserts that she can’t be pigeonholed. The album is percussive and burbling — imbuing poppy, vocal-driven songwriting with an ample dose of ambition. A healthy cast of collaborators, including Kaki King, Aoife O’Donovan, Magro, and others, massage Williams’ approachable side. It arrives surrounding a tour with Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard, who has been a long-term supporter of Williams’ work.

In spite of an increasingly accessible sound and big break in sight, Williams has no desire to reconsider her earthy, traditional formula. “I hope I can remain true to myself and not have to become so mainstream that I lose some of my identity. That would be tragic,” Williams tells me over Zoom with a faint, nervous chuckle. She’s wearing a colorful button-down shirt, a banjo mounted on the wall behind her. Over the course of our conversation, it’s quickly made apparent that her ethos is too pure to allow these anxieties to manifest. That her spellbinding fretwork is catching such widespread attention is only a consequence of timeless prowess.

Could you talk to me a little bit about your musical background? I know you come from pretty hard rocking roots. I’m curious how that led to you creating such gentle, beautiful music.

YASMIN WILLIAMS: My background, as far as what my family listened to, is hip-hop, smooth jazz, go-go music, R&B… that sort of stuff. I didn’t really discover rock until basically when I started playing Guitar Hero in the eighth grade. I discovered rock and metal, and I became super into that because it was really different from what I’d grown up listening to. It informed my early guitar playing, because it was very electric guitar focused and heavy and I wanted to be a shredder of sorts.

But that turned into something totally different when I got my first acoustic guitar a couple years after I started playing. I was about 14 and a half, and once I started messing around with that, I discovered fingerstyle playing and alternate tunings and stuff like that. I realized that the music I actually wanted to write was very different from whatever I was listening to in ninth and tenth grade, like Buckethead and Paul Gilbert. Once I discovered that I actually wanted to write music, my style was super melodic and super far left from the heavy stuff I was listening to. I just rolled with that.

On top of being a really cool artist, you’re technically extremely skilled. I’m curious if you have a daily routine as a musician.

WILLIAMS: [Laughs] No, I don’t. I don’t practice nearly enough. But when I do practice, I have a couple warm ups that I’ve made up over the years that are really helpful. Usually, before shows, I play a song by Elizabeth Cotten called “Vastopol” that I really like. It centers me and grounds my mind, which is really nice.

Fair enough. With such an intricate formula, I’m curious if you could talk to me about your writing process. Is your music rooted in improvisation or do you know everything you’re going to play before you play it?

WILLIAMS: I would say it’s a bit of both. So mainly it seems that, at least lately, when I sit down to play, I don’t really think about writing a song. It just happens over time. I might come up with a phrase or something that I really like and just repeat that over and over again. Eventually, I come up with other phrases that fit with that and I repeat those over and over again. The songs kind of write themselves.

It’s a mix of improv, for sure, but sometimes, when I sit down to play, there’s already something stuck in my head and I just play it on the guitar and see how it fits and go from there. But yeah, improv is very, very important to the overall writing process. Usually, it takes me several months to finish a tune. Sometimes it doesn’t take that long, but usually it’s a pretty long process because I like to sit with things and see how I feel about it over time.

This new album feels like a pretty big step forward on a lot of levels. I’m curious how you feel your music has grown and changed since Urban Driftwood.

WILLIAMS: I feel like Acadia is just a representation of where I wanted my music to go, as far as expanding instrumentation, using more complex song structures, or maybe not depending so much on song structures. I feel like I grew up with a lot of music that was, like, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge — that sort of thing. And recently I’ve wanted to not depend so much on that. Because I do love that structure in songwriting. But I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could write longer tunes and tunes that didn’t rely on such a rigid structure and use different chords and chordal shapes.

I incorporated collaborators — there’s, like, 19 guest artists on the album, which is kind of insane. I didn’t plan for there to be so many people, but that’s just how it worked out. I think it’s a really cool expansion of Urban Driftwood, and I think Acadia sounds like me. But it has more going on, if that makes sense.

Yeah, for sure. Could you talk to me about the recording process for Acadia?

WILLIAMS: I recorded most of my guitar tracks and other tracks I played at this studio near me in Maryland, Blue House Productions. Some of the guest artists, like Tatiana Hargreaves and Allison de Groot, I had them fly over here. They recorded “Hummingbird” with me. A couple times, I did have to go to New York and Boston to record with Marcus [Gilmore] and Immanuel [Wilkins] and Malick [Koly] for their tracks. And to record with the string ensemble that’s on “Sisters,” which was really cool.

For the most part, a lot of the collaborators were remote. They just sent me tracks from wherever they recorded and I would give them notes. And they would send me more stuff, and I would give notes, or it would be perfect. It wasn’t super long of a process, in terms of figuring out the guest artists I wanted to be on there. All of the tracks, I had specific things in mind. The people I asked to be on the record were the people I wanted on the record first. So it worked out.

One of the things I love about your music is how much it pushes genre. I feel like this album does that even more. And you’re about to tour with Brittany Howard, which seems a little bit unexpected given where your music lands. But it’s also very cool, and speaks to how much range you have. With all that in mind, I’m curious where you view your music dwelling stylistically, if you do anywhere at all.

WILLIAMS: That’s a question I’ve been trying to answer for years, and I have no clue. I mean, I feel like when my first album came out, I was labeled as a percussive fingerstyle player. I don’t know if you know Andy McKee or Kaki King or those types of people.

I actually don’t.

WILLIAMS: I was in that world. And then when Urban Driftwood came out, I was put into the folk and bluegrass world, which is not a world I knew about at the time. Especially bluegrass. I didn’t know much of anything, so I learned a lot. But I don’t know if my music fits into any of those things.

I don’t really adhere to any genre. I don’t really care about that. My music is more style-based, I guess; more mood-based — very contemplative, kind of meditative, kind of melancholic. Those sorts of things, I vibe with more than being, like, “Oh, I’m a folk artist.” Like, I am, but also that’s not the only thing. Genres are kind of limiting in that aspect.

How did the tour with Howard come to life, and how are you feeling about that? It sounds super big.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, it’s huge. Her management reached out to my agent and they asked me to do it. I said, “Heck yeah! Why would I say no? I’m available!” I’ve never met Brittany in person, but I did meet her virtually. I remember that year I entered NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, and she picked my entry as a Top Shelf thing. She interviewed me, which was really cool.

I’m very excited. I think it’ll be really, really fun. I think our styles are quite different, but match really well. Michael Kiwanuka is there, too, which rounds everything together. It’ll just be three really cool acts, who are kind of alt, kind of folk, kind of rock. You get a mix of everything with that show, so I’m really excited about it.

I found your music through the Aquarium Drunkard and William Tyler world of artists. So that just feels like such a big step into the spotlight. Congrats!

WILLIAMS: I’m excited! I want to see how the audience reacts. We’ll see. Hopefully good vibes.

You mentioned mood impacting your music more than anything else. I’m curious if there’s a mood you have attached to Acadia.

WILLIAMS: The record is pretty much about me reflecting on things that I’ve experienced, from touring to personal life things to being a professional musician, finally, in the last four years. The mood is melancholic and nostalgic in a way, but also super joyous, and kind of all of those things wrapped into one.

So you’re doing music full-time now, it sounds like?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

What was the jump into that like, and how has it been so far?

WILLIAMS: The jump was swift. It was quick. Not much time to acclimate or prepare myself for going from being stuck in the house because of Covid to being on the road a bunch for the last three years. But Urban Driftwood propelled everything from zero to 100, so I had to get acclimated really quickly. I think it’s been overall really great. I’ve learned a lot. I’m comfortable on the road now. I got over an injury that I had about a year and a half ago, which is really nice. I can take care of myself better. I’ve met so many people at various festivals and shows I’ve done. I’ve traveled to several countries at this point. The music industry has a lot of issues that need to get remedied. But for the most part, for me personally, it’s been successful being a professional musician so far.

What were you doing before you were doing music full time?

WILLIAMS: Before that, I was in school. I went to NYU for music theory and composition. And then, after that, I was living with my parents for a little while. They were helping me out, letting me live at home while I was trying to figure out this music stuff. I’ve been doing music and shows since college, but not full time. And then once Unwind came out, my first record, I started getting more money from royalties and playing more shows, which really helped. And then when Urban Driftwood came out, that took everything over the edge. I could start my professional life. It’s been pretty awesome ever since!

Are you just doing your solo project full time, or are you playing with other artists, too?

WILLIAMS: Just solo. Just me. I don’t do anything else.

Nice. Congratulations! I feel like that’s a special place for someone making instrumental guitar music to be in.

WILLIAMS: I’m super grateful! I have a lot of friends who’ve tried to do this, and it’s tough to maintain. Instrumental music is not the most mainstream or popular form of music, especially because it’s just me on stage, I don’t play with a band or anything. To be able to get the opportunities and the feedback I’ve gotten throughout the years about my shows has been really awesome. We’ll see where it goes.

Back to Acadia. I feel like this is always an interesting question to ask about an instrumental record, but are there any themes that impact this music for you?

WILLIAMS: I will say that the album has a sort of narrative arc. It’s a suite. The first three songs — “Cliffwalk,” “Harvest,” and “Hummingbird” — are intertwined. The next three — “Virga,” “Sisters,” and “Dawning” — are intertwined. And the last three are intertwined. It goes from almost-but-not-quite-solo acoustic stuff, which is what people might be expecting of me, to stuff with vocals and bigger instrumentation — more going on. Then the last three tracks are electric guitar, and the last track is just straight up rock and jazz.

As far as themes, I don’t know if they’re as evident as they were with Urban Driftwood. But I would say, for the most part, every song on the record is about some sort of personal experience or ordeal that I’ve had. For example, “Cliffwalk” is a song that I wrote the night before I played the Newport Folk Festival for the first time in 2021. I improvised the second half of it on stage. That wasn’t necessarily the plan when I got on stage, but I just decided to do that and it worked out. I remembered the song and put it on the record, and Newport turned out to be one of the most pivotal moments of my life as far as wanting to be a professional musician and thinking I could do it. So there’s not necessarily a narrative throughout the entire record, but each song is its own story or journey. Each song is a planet, and then the record is a universe.

I like that. You touched on this a little bit already, but obviously there are a ton of collaborators on the album. I love how much more rhythmic and vocal-driven this one feels. I’m curious how you settled on the choice to work with so many people this time around, and how you’re feeling about that.

WILLIAMS: I didn’t realize that I had that many people in mind until I wrote down every name. Then I was like, “I don’t know if this is going to work. I don’t know if everyone’s going to want to be on the record.” Also, as far as the record label side of stuff, getting clearances sorted out seemed like a big hassle. I just chose everyone based on how I thought they could contribute their style to the song.

For example, Darlingside on “Virga;” I really only wanted them to do that because I thought they were one of the few acts that could arrange “Virga” in a way that was super compelling vocally and add a ton to the song. My songs are not easy, they’re pretty complex, and you have to commit to adding something to it. I thought of a list of people that could do it or would want to do it. Every single person on the record, I really love their music. I’m just grateful that they said yes.

How’d you end up working with Nonesuch, and what drew you to that label?

WILLIAMS: They sought me out. It was between them and another label. But I knew I wanted to work with Nonesuch because I just like the acts that are currently on the label and acts that have been on the label. I like that they’re known for putting out more avant-garde, less mainstream music, but also having successful releases. It was an easy choice, like, really required no thought. I’m just happy that it worked out.

I believe you’re based in Alexandria, Virginia, which is where I’m from. You’re probably one of the coolest artists I know of working out of Alexandria right now. I feel like most artists who gravitate towards any kind of weird music have all left and moved to different cities. So with that in mind, I’m curious how being based in the DC area impacts what you do as an experimental musician.

WILLIAMS: I mean, I gotta be honest and say that I’m not super tapped into the local music scene here. Not just counting Alexandria, because there really isn’t much of a local music scene, but the DMV area in general. There’s a lot of cool people here who are doing really cool things. There’s a lot of great studios. There’s a lot of cool, more experimental people. Like, Anthony Pirog’s here and Janel (Leppin) is here. But I just live here. I’m from here. It doesn’t really have any effect on my music. I love go-go music, and that kind of has an effect in some ways.

But the overall music scene here? It could be better. A lot of people do move. I have a lot of friends who have left and went to Nashville, New York, LA, whatever. The DC music scene is weird. It’s good, there’s a lot of talented people. But I don’t think it’s as supportive as it could be, or as helpful as it could be. It could be a lot better, but that’s a longer conversation. I just live here. I’m chillin’.

I’m with you there. Having grown up playing in bands around DC, I feel like it’s not the easiest place to hack it. But I’m not sure I thought you’d be doing what you do full time. I was wondering if you were more reliant on the local gigs.

WILLIAMS: Oh no, it took me a long time to get local gigs. I was traveling more than playing locally. I didn’t know anybody who could help out. Songwriters’ Association of Washington helped me out early in my career, as far as getting shows. Other than that, it wasn’t until I’d already had moderate success that I was asked to play in the area. That kind of says a lot about the scene.

I dealt with similar stuff. For whatever reason, it was hard to book a show at one of the three venues.

WILLIAMS: Still is.

I think we’re roughly the same age. It feels like you’re way ahead of where most 20-somethings who try to pursue any type of left-field music are. I guess I’m curious what it’s like being pretty young and already doing what you do.

WILLIAMS: I’ve opened for some people now and have been on some tour bus tours, and I’m usually the youngest person. I don’t dislike it. It’s a little strange, because it’s not really something I thought about or expected. I don’t really think about age. But I’ve definitely noticed when some people are, like, “I’m 43,” I’m, like, “You are? That’s crazy, I’m 28.” It’s definitely a thing, but it’s fine. It means I can learn a lot from people who have been in the game for 20 years, 10 years, 15 years. I just try to soak up as much as I can from people. Luckily, I’ve met a lot of people who are super nice and have given me a lot of great advice. But it’s kind of a weird position to be in, for sure. I don’t have many models to look at, in terms of what to do, so I’m pretty much just winging it every day.

Acadia is out 10/4 on Nonesuch.