Through next month, Yasmin Williams kicks off her European tour taking in several festivals, including Glastonbury Festival (UK), Roskilde Festival (DK), Best Kept Secret (NL), Black Deer Festival (UK), Elbjazz (DE), and Primavera Sounds (ESP). While in the UK, Yasmin will be touring with fellow guitarist Gwenifer Raymond who also has other UK dates lined up including dates with Ryley Walker and Leigh Folk Festival.
One of the most beautiful and original albums from 2021 was Yasmin Williams’ Urban Driftwood. It’s not often that you get to hear music that an artist has made all their own. Behind them, there is usually a guiding light or string of influences that underpin and shape their sound. For Williams she was raised on a diet of R&B, hip-hop, smooth jazz and the go-go funk of Chuck Brown. Not exactly acoustic reference material, although her use of the kalimba, which she attaches to her guitar’s body, was inspired by early childhood memories of watching Earth Wind and Fire’s Maurice White performing a kalimba solo. Williams has a sincere off-hand presence and is more than capable of building a rapport with her audience that draws you in and accentuates the warmness of her performance.
Percussion plays an integral part of Yasmin Williams’ music, which, alongside kalimba, includes the percussive elements of tap-shoes and finger percussion on the guitar strings – the mastery of which can be traced back to her playing the console game Guitar Hero.
Despite being an instrumentalist, the music and title of her album (Urban Driftwood) does carry a message. Her family came from an urban background. The term ‘driftwood’ can be interpreted differently, from the unique journey she’s undertaken, moved along by the currents and events of life, to the treatment of the Black communities. In a recent interview, she explained how many people love black culture, which is hugely influential but isn’t matched with the respect they deserve – viewed as ‘ trash or something that’s not really needed…’
While there may have been an absence of a guiding light for Williams, in terms of the inspiration she is like a lighthouse to aspiring young players and you can’t ask for more than that.
Another guitarist and banjo player who bucks the white male trend is Welsh-born American primitivist Gwenifer Raymond, who burst onto the scene in 2018 with her debut album You Never Were Much of a Dancer via one of her favourite record labels (and one of ours) Tompkins Square.
Her gateway to music can be traced from an early Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ cassette through to punk bands The Fall and Butthole Surfers and her time playing in punk bands at gigs in the valleys.
She later discovered pre-war blues players such as Mississippi John Hurt, which encouraged her to pursue the guitar. She also became familiar with Appalachian banjo players like Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb. She later sought out a guitar tutor in Cardiff who taught her the alternating thumb style she often uses. She began writing her own instrumentals, which, thanks to her tutor, led her to discover the world of Primitive guitar and the likes of John Fahey. In fact, through Josh Rosenthal at Tompkins Square, she played some gigs in Fahey’s hometown of Takoma Park (including the community art space known as Rhizome DC) for The Thousand Incarnations of the Rose in 2018. This 3-day music festival brought together for the first time some of the best acoustic fingerstyle guitar and banjo players from every era of the American Primitive/Guitar Soli movement.
On her debut, Glenn Kimpton noted how she used subtle repetition and drone playing while her cyclical techniques create a hypnotic quality that lulls the listener in before jolting them. As he said, ‘it’s clever playing and a lesson in restraint that takes some players a career to find.’ Gwenifer Raymond is certainly not short of dedication when required; she has a PhD in Astrophysics.
Her 2020 follow-up, Strange Lights over Garth Mountain, (the title giving away her Welsh roots and maybe a love of sci-fi), saw her extending her pieces, allowing “space to breathe and Gwen time to flex and explore.” Something she achieves in a monumental leap:
“Although You Never Were Much of a Dancer was an accomplished debut, it still felt like Gwen was demonstrating her skills and doffing her cap to the players who helped influence and shape her sound. Strange Lights feels like a huge leap forward; every note sounds original and creative. That space in the songs is also critical to how the album plays. There is still plenty of Gwen’s punky frenetic picking across the set, but it is juxtaposed with moments of calm (touched with menace of course; it’s still a Gwenifer Raymond album).” Glenn Kimpton, Folk Radio.
Both Gwenifer and Yasmin are creating sonic landscapes that are very personal to them, brimming with emotional energy. The contrast in their music will make this a really fascinating tour. Yasmin’s music has that expansive feel akin to spiritual jazz, a meditative quality that sweeps over you, while Gwenifer’s music has an almost primal energy that’s both exciting and exhilarating.
They both transcend language and boundaries and have helped to redraw the boundaries of the acoustic world. This is sure to be an unmissable tour.
Below are their joint dates alongside the other UK and European dates they have lined up.
Tour Dates
Yasmin Williams & Gwenifer Raymond UK Dates
Mon 13 Jun – Brighton (UK) – Komedia Studio – tickets
Wed 15 Jun – Bristol (UK) -The Wardrobe Theatre – tickets
Fri 17 Jun – Birmingham (UK) – Kitchen Garden Cafe – tickets
Mon 20 Jun – Leeds (UK) – Brudenell Social Club – tickets
Wed 22 Jun – Manchester (UK) – YES (Pink Room) – tickets
Gwenifer Raymond Dates
Thu 16 Jun – Edinburgh (UK) – Hidden Door Festival – tickets
Sun 26 Jun – Leigh-On-Sea (UK) – Leigh Folk Festival (w/ Treetop Flyers) – tickets
28-31 July – Cambridge Folk Festival –
28-31 July – WOMAD Festival – https://womad.co.uk/
Mon 29 Aug – Glasgow (UK) – Broadcast (w/ Ryley Walker) tickets
Tue 30 Aug – Leeds (UK) – Brudenell Social Club (w/ Deerhoof + Ryley Walker) tickets
Wed 31 Aug – Birmingham (UK) – Hare & Hounds (w/ Ryley Walker) tickets
Thu 01 Sep – Guildford (UK) – The Boileroom (w/ Ryley Walker) tickets
Fri 02 Sep – Exeter (UK) – Phoenix (w/ Ryley Walker) tickets
Sun 04 Sep – End of the Road Festival (UK) (SOLD OUT)
Yasmin Williams Dates
Fri 3 Jun – Quasimodo, Berlin, Germany – tickets
Sat 4 Jun – ELBJAZZ 2022, Hamburg, Germany – tickets
Wed 8 Jun – Primavera Sound 2022, Sant Adrià De Besòs, Spain – tickets
Fri 10 Jun – Best Kept Secret 2022, Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands – tickets
Sat 11 Jun – Yasmin Williams, Paris, France – tickets
Tue 14 Jun – St Matthias Church, London – tickets
Sun 19 Jun – Black Deer Festival, Tunbridge Wells – tickets
Thu 30 Jun – Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark – tickets
https://www.yasminwilliamsmusic.com/ | https://gweniferraymond.com/