Jess Williamson – Hum Of The City

Today, Texas-born singer-songwriter Jess Williamson released the new single “Hum Of The City,” from her forthcoming sixth studio album, A Mile South of Heaven, which is also released this week, on October 9 on New West Records).

With plucked acoustic guitars and haunting fiddle, the track conjures the feeling of being lost in the in-between, in a place that feels familiar but not quite like “home.” Williamson’s Appalachian lilt beautifully recounts the tale of an existential experience returning to the very same anonymous hotel room she’d unknowingly stayed in years earlier before a life-changing breakup.

“I’m kind of a wanderer by nature, and this song is about my complicated relationship with the idea of home. I’ve spent years feeling pulled between the excitement of life in the city and the peace of a more rural life, never quite sure where I belong.” stated Williamson.

“There’s a romance to being in hotels alone,” she continued. “I love checking into my room, going down to the hotel bar, and talking with the bartender. I once checked into a hotel and realized I was staying in the very same room I’d been in years earlier (room 12, from the song), during a completely different season of my life, right before a major life change. There’s something uncanny about the anonymity of a hotel room holding such a personal memory.

The song imagines a conversation with the hotel bartender, asking him to change the music. Sometimes contemporary music feels a little weird if you happen to have history with the person singing it. But old country music always hits.”

Produced by Shooter Jennings at the famed Sunset Sound in Hollywood, A Mile South Of Heaven, is twang-forward masterwork, rich with pedal steel, fiddle, and banjo and places traditional country music at the center of the frame, without sacrificing any of the mysticism, emotional depth, and indie sensibility that have long defined her work.

Written between LA and Marfa, where the acclaimed artist splits her time, it explores the spiritual push and pull between two vastly different worlds– from Hollywood ambition to the quiet beauty of Far West Texas. Across twelve songs, she explores the moving target of success, the search for home, relationships, grief, identity and the freedom that comes from finally letting go of other people’s expectations and, more importantly, your own.

Highlights include “The Gem and The Mineral show”, where Jess unpacks unexpectedly discovering Jack Antonoff had named her song his most-played track of the year before finding herself meeting Taylor Swift at an intimate Grammys afterparty weeks later. A moment quickly juxtaposed against navigating the devastating loss of her beloved dog Nana, whose death led to one of the album’s most moving moments of reflection at her graveside in the West Texas desert.

Elsewhere Jess fights for self confidence, on “Tracking The Tropics” longing for the people and places that make you feel truly known and accepted and “High Heels and Blue Jeans” explores the challenges she faced at times on the road, fighting back tears, trying to do her eyeliner before a show and feeling the big responsibility to the audience to give them the best show she can.  “Someone Else’s Horses” Williamson reflects on years spent believing she had to prove herself in a male-dominated music world, comparing herself to “the dudes with gear” before realizing that none of it had anything to do with becoming a great songwriter.

“Dark Day in Dallas,” which opens with a phrase she wrote about a decade before the song was penned, was written during an upstate New York writing retreat with four other songwriters (Courtney Marie Andrews, Lola Kirke, Cornelia Murr, and Katie Pearlman) and became the emotionally-charged song dedicated to her mom.

The title track, however, holds the key to the entire album: “A Mile South of Heaven” reflects on the realization that the goalposts are always moving and all that striving can make you miss what’s right in front of you.

All of these stories shared on A Mile South of Heaven – the wins and losses, growth and setback, beauty and discomfort, confidence and uncertainty – create an imagistic narrative world that is, above all, deeply human and relatable.

“Depending on your outlook, a mile south of heaven may sound sad, or it may sound hopeful,” Williamson explains. “We’re always a mile south of the impossible goals we set for ourselves, and my point is, maybe that’s ok, because a mile is pretty close. It’s about appreciating where we are now, because there is no finish line. There is always more work to be done.” 

Long regarded as one of the most compelling voices at the intersection of indie folk, American Roots, and country, Williamson has earned widespread acclaim for albums including Time Ain’t Accidental and Sorceress, while expanding her creative vision with Plains’ I Walked With You a Ways. A Mile South of Heaven is Williamson’s most personal, emotionally resonant, and fully realized work to date—an album that finds one of America’s finest songwriters at her creative peak, with songs that reject the myth of arrival in favor of something richer: a life lived in motion, where fulfillment is found not at the end of the road but somewhere along it.

Jess Williamson also announced new headline tour dates in 2027 including stops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and more.

2027 A Mile South of Heaven Tour

Jan 11 Mon – Saxapahaw, NC – Haw River Ballroom 

Jan 12 Tue – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club

Jan 14 Thu – Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts

Jan 15 Fri – Boston MA – Sinclair 

Jan 16 Sat – New York, NY – Irving Plaza 

Jan 18 Mon – Toronto, ON – The Great Hall 

Jan 19 Tue – Detroit, MI – El Club

Jan 21 Thu – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall 

Jan 22 Fri – Milwaukee, WI – Vivarium

Jan 23 Sat – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line

Feb 4 Thu – Denver, CO – Bluebird 

Feb 5 Fri – Carbondale, CO – Old Thompson Bar 

Feb 6 Sat – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge 

Feb 8 Mon – Boise, ID – Shrine Basement

Feb 10 Wed – Portland, OR – Aladdin

Feb 11 Thu – Vancouver, BC – The Pearl 

Feb 12 Fri – Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern

Feb 13 Sat – Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern

Feb 15 Mon – Healdsburg, CA – Little Saint

Feb 16 Tue – Sacramento, CA – Harlow’s – The Starlet Room

Feb 18 Thu – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall

Feb 19 Fri – Santa Cruz, CA – Moe’s Alley

Feb 20 Sat – Los Angeles, CA – Pacific Electric

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