Review: Yasmin Williams Breaks the Mold with Urban Driftwood

By: Carlos Martin Schwab

Yasmin Williams is one unique guitar aficionado who has ventured into exploring intriguing realms of the acoustic guitar soundscape. She strums, picks, percussively taps and gently pounds her guitars to add textures, beats and different musical dialogues to her compositions.

It is undeniable that in acoustic fingerstyle guitar there was a before and after who reinvented the acoustic guitar playing: Michael Hedges (www.nomadland.com). Many have continued his legacy, such as Andy McKee (https://andymckee.com), and others have even extended it a little further by adding more percussion to the guitar, such as Luca Stricagnoli (www.lucastricagnoli.com) and Marcin Patrzalek (look for him on YouTube). Among other characteristics common to all of them, we can mention the alternative tunings and their guitar recordings without overdubbing.

But the acoustic guitar has no limits. And we remember it, as with Michael Hedges, when a musician finds that what has been done with an instrument so far is not enough to reach the music inside him.

Yasmin Williams is a young guitarist who continues to break the mold of acoustic guitar playing. She combines the normal acoustic guitar playing position with lap tapping (as in “Juvenescence”), adds a small percussion hammer (as in “Through the Woods”), and other small instruments, such as the kalimba (“Jarabi”), to her performances. She is not afraid to overdub her recordings like “Sunshower,” to broaden the story she wants to show with her refreshing and relaxing music.

Recently, Yasmin began opening shows for Tommy Emmanuel, one of three guitarists the legendary guitarist, Chet Atkins, knighted as “certified guitar” players. “Yaz” will also be presenting her cool vibey music at the Newport Folk Festival, the New Orleans Jazz Festival and a growing list of premiere venues in the States and overseas. Folks who dig the serenity and fugue-like hipness of finely crafted acoustic instrumentals tethered to percussive ornamentation, as well as her added Kalimba riffs, are going to love Urban Driftwood.

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