Yasmin Williams has announced a new album called Acadia. The follow-up to the composer’s 2021 LP Urban Driftwood comes out October 4 via Nonesuch. It includes the previously shared Aoife O’Donovan collaboration ‘Dawning’, as as a new track, ‘Virga’, which features guest vocals from the Boston indie-folk band Darlingside. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.
Discussing the album, Williams said in a press release:
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.
Of the new single, Williams explained: “A virga is a meteorological phenomenon where streaks of rain hang from a cloud and evaporate before reaching the ground. I related this sentiment to how it feels for me to be an artist in an industry that doesn’t seem to always value art and reflection. I eventually realized that I needed to learn how to thrive “in virga,” so to speak … to learn to be okay with feeling slightly suspended in time, with my hopes and dreams dangling in an environment I have no control over, never fully having my feet planted on the ground.”
Acadia Cover Artwork:
Acadia Tracklist:
1. Cliffwalk
2. Harvest
3. Hummingbird
4. Virga
5. Sisters
6. Dawning
7. Dream Lake
8. Nectar
9. Malamu
