Jess Williamson releases a magical one-shot video for “Time Ain’t Accidental,” the title track and opener from Williamson’s highly anticipated new album, out June 9th via Mexican Summer.

​”​The lyrics ​to ‘Time Ain’t Accidental​’​ ​came pouring out of me because i​t’​s the true story of a very special day when I was falling in love with the person who is now my partner. The chorus references a Raymond Carver book of short stories I was reading at the time, and to me the song itself feels like a short story. For the video, we wanted to make the album cover come to life. ​We shot ​it in one take on Pinto Canyon Road outside of Marfa, Texas during a storm. That specific stretch of highway is really special to me, because when I was working on the record I would go on long walks down this empty road listening back to my mixes and working out the album sequence. When I’m out there alone I feel like the only person inside of a vast painting, it’s surreal, and I wanted to share that feeling with the world,​” says Williamson.​

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. 

Last year, 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.

Photo Courtesy: Jackie Lee Young