Composer and guitarist Yasmin Williams releases “Hummingbird,” a track from her new album, Acadia—due October 4, via Nonesuch Records—today. “Hummingbird” features Allison de Groot on banjo and Tatiana Hargreaves on fiddle, a duo whose instrumentals “mesmerize in the most splendid manner,” per No Depression; a music video for “Hummingbird” also is available today and may be seen here:

Acadia is Williams’ Nonesuch debut and her most sonically expansive work to date. It comprises nine original, mostly instrumental, tracks written and produced by Williams, and featuring her on various guitars, banjo, calabash drum, tap shoes, and kora. Williams is joined on the album by collaborators including Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone, Dom Flemons on rhythm bones, Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, William Tyler on guitar, and many others—creating a folk music that reflects the wide range of musical influences that have inspired her throughout her life.

Williams brings her new music to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and the Evanston Folk Festival in Illinois this weekend, before embarking on a fall North American tour with Brittany Howard and Michael Kiwanuka later this month and playing London’s Pitchfork Music Festival in November. A complete list of dates is below.

On writing “Hummingbird,” Williams says: “Being thrust into the folk genre has granted me several invitations to play at various folk and bluegrass festivals. This style of music is not one that I grew up with and is still relatively new to me; however, I can’t help but be somewhat influenced by the amazing musicianship of all the bluegrass, folk, and old-time musicians I’ve seen in the last few years. Although this wasn’t on my mind consciously when I wrote this tune, I assume these influences entered my subconscious.”

Of the album, she adds: “Acadia has several meanings: a place of rural peace and pastoral poetry (Italian), a refuge or idyllic place, (Greek and Italian), fertile land (Mi'kmaq), a place of plenty (French) ... all of this relates to the ethos of this album. The songs are seeds I planted, and the seeds grew into the album, Acadia: a place of peace, a place where creativity can blossom, a place where everyone can fit in together and collaborate effectively, a place where the fruits of my own labor in music can fully flourish without judgment or prejudice. One of my visions for this record was to expand the potential for current folk music to encourage collaboration across various genres. Blurring those somewhat arbitrary lines has been a natural tendency for me since I started writing music at twelve years old and Acadia is a full circle moment.”

“Williams … is one of the country’s most imaginative young solo guitarists," says the New York Times. "[Her] radiant sound and adventitious origins have made her a key figure in a diverse dawn for the solo guitar.” Songlines calls her “an original, a genuine trailblazer, one of those rare musicians who challenges your preconceptions about the possible.” Pitchfork proclaims: “Williams' approach to the instrument allows her to confound expectations, making you question the source of each overtone and rhythm.” The Guardian says: “Special kudos to whoever booked Yasmin Williams [at Glastonbury]. She may not be a huge name (yet) but anyone who’s feeling a bit fragile can’t fail to be soothed by the guitarist’s magical and innovative style. The result is so fluid and sparkling, it just pulses with life. She creates acres of space, then fills it with busy refrains that reach ever skyward. Or she crafts sparkling, fraught, kaleidoscopic helixes of sound.”

A native of northern Virginia, Williams began playing electric guitar in eighth grade and quickly moved on to acoustic guitar, finding that it allowed her to combine fingerstyle techniques with the lap-tapping skills she had developed, as well as perform as a solo artist. Williams’ influences include the smooth jazz and R&B she listened to growing up, Hendrix and Nirvana, go-go and hip-hop. Her love for the band Earth, Wind and Fire prompted her to incorporate the kalimba into her songwriting, and she has also drawn inspiration from other Black women guitarists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Algia Mae Hinton. On her previous album, the highly acclaimed Urban Driftwood (SPINSTER, 2021), Williams referenced the music of West African griots through the inclusion of kora and by featuring the hand drumming of 150th generation djeli of the Kouyate family, Amadou Kouyate, on the title track. Last fall, she released the Acadia album track “Dawning,” featuring Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, Kafari on rhythm bones, and Nic Gareiss’ percussive dancing.

YASMIN WILLIAMS ON TOUR

*w/Brittany Howard & Michael Kiwanuka