Jess Williamson w/ Sam Cassidy at Turf Club

Endless prairies and ocean waves; long drives and highway expanse; dancing, smoke, sex, and physical desire – the core images of Jess Williamson’s new album Time Ain’t Accidental revel in the earthly and the carnal. After a protracted breakup with a romantic partner and longtime musical collaborator who left Williamson and their home in Los Angeles at the start of the pandemic, the album’s reckoning with loss, isolation, romance, and personal reclamation signals a tectonic shift for Williamson as a person and as an artist: from someone who once accommodated and made herself small to a woman emboldened by her power as an individual.

Minneapolis songwriter Sam Cassidy draws on the life of ordinary people as well as his own experiences to paint vivid pictures of struggle and joy, hard work and taking it easy. Pulling on influences from classics like Springsteen and Petty, as well as contemporaries like Laura Marling and Waxahatchee, his songs explore the grey area between right and wrong and try to examine what brings people to do the things they do. Backed by his sprawling band, The All Night Canyons, the live show is not to be missed.