“I have all of this melancholy that I don't want but feel like I still need in some way,” says London multi-instrumentalist A.A. Williams. “We coexist in a slightly shitty kind of sisterhood and just have to kind of put up with each other.”
Thankfully, she has an outlet in which to offload her emotions. Williams’ third studio album Solstice delves further into her cinematic, gothic sort of post-rock, bathed in the emotion of her dynamic voice. Her songs help her live with this melancholic entity which, at times, she finds herself craving.
“It's a weird dynamic to have,” she says. “It's like being addicted to something almost, but knowing that you can try and help yourself and improve the situation. Navigating that is just as hard as it is navigating a shit situation with a partner.
I'm someone who feels stuff a lot, and I don't avoid stuff because that's just dangerous and worse for me personally.”
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A.A. Williams’ music envelopes the listener in a musical embrace that’s impossible to shrug off. Whether it feels like a warm blanket or a tidal wave of sound depends completely on the song, the context, and the listener.
It’s this musical experience that has allowed her to play festivals across Europe and support the likes of Sleep Token and A Perfect Circle. Along the way, she’s captured the hearts and minds of those lucky enough to see her perform.
“It's a real luxury to be able to perform to that many new faces in one go,” she says. “You don't get to do that very often. It's an amazing way to introduce yourself to people. Of the people that come and see you, you're going to reach a portion of them. Maybe not everybody, but that's how live music is.”
As she’s been unveiling new songs from Solstice over the summer festival season, she’s gotten to see the reaction of new listeners in real time.
“You don't get to watch someone listening to [your music] for the first time, but you do at a festival because most of the people watching you don't know who you are. You get to see that change in them as they start to understand what you’re trying to do. Seeing that reaction in them is a cool journey and a really lovely thing.“
While her 2020 debut Forever Blue was a cult favorite among listeners stuck in their houses during the pandemic, her set of intimate covers recorded in her living room really helped her step out into the wider world.
Songs from Isolation saw Williams emoting over some of her favorite songs by Radiohead, Deftones, Nick Cave, The Cure and more, and stripped back everything except the instrument and her enthralling voice. Surprisingly, though, she’d never sung much until this project, but the repetition of recording albums and tourings has allowed her to settle into the confidence of her voice.
“Singing for me still feels new,” she says, “but it doesn't feel stressful and I'm not nervous about it anymore. I love doing it now, which I think is another thing that you can hear in the delivery. I feel like I can express more with it. It just feels like a natural communication method for me, which is really cool.”
This growth and confidence is evident across Solstice. Moments like the chorus of “Outlines” are a perfect example. Longing about a future uncertain, her voice flutters like a falling leaf from one note to the next with satisfying ease.
“It was various permutations of that run to try and figure out how it falls naturally,” she says. “Putting the syllable in the right place and figuring out the shape. It took a few goes just to make it feel like it was almost an exhalation, you know? The end of the word just kind of falls away and you get down there into the next place.
“I love to make those little memorable places. I always try to have something in the verse and something in the chorus, I want there to be a moment. I like there to be something memorable in that place too, not just save all the goodies for the chorus or for the big ending. Let's have something everywhere.
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What sets Solstice apart from Forever Blue and 2022’s As the Moon Rests is the light that’s peaking through the darkness on this album. She sat in a coffee shop for three days figuring out the visual direction of that album, and decided to lean into what made these songs different.
“There was a bit more optimism in contrast to the less positive stuff,” she says. “If you listen to the album, I don't think a really abstract, dark cover or artwork would really suit. For the previous records they make sense to be what they are, but there's a lot more light and shade on this record. It’s worth acknowledging that in a visual sense as well.”
Though her trademark melancholy and emotional heft is still present, there is a sort of light at the end of the tunnel with many of its tracks.
“‘Little By Little’ is very much a song about realizing you're in a place that you don't want to be,” she says. “It's not even coming to many conclusions. The point is to just acknowledge that something isn't how it needs to be, and figuring out a way of doing something that serves you for a change. Just having that penny drop moment is so important. I think the optimism, even from something as small as that, comes through.”
Late album track “It Won’t Rain Forever” and single “Just a Shadow” are other examples she mentions that also touch on this topic.
“It's about understanding a situation and trying to learn how to manage it and adapt to it. You can't always change things, even if you want to. So instead of turning the lights off and ignoring it all, the better thing is to surely try to understand yourself within it. You can't just let it hurt you forever. It's not going to work.
“That’s something that comes up in a few songs. Finally acknowledging that it's possible but it's going to be really, really hard. And you still need to do it because that's still better than staying where you are.”
It’s a gradual shift from her previous records as she grows as both a musician and a person through her artistic journey.
Maybe the previous couple of albums were quite insular. I'm kind of looking at situations, going, "Oh, well, this is how they are,” but not, "What can I do about it?” I guess maybe I'm growing up a little bit and learning myself better as well.
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Though her music is more “metal adjacent” than metal, she’s won over plenty of heavy music lovers with her dark, introspective lyrics and massive walls of sound. But she still finds herself stuck between what she is and people think heavy music should be.
“It's funny because the impression I get sometimes is that the music I create does not match an expectation somebody has of me and what they believe that I should be making,” she says. “But what it is that they think I should be making, nobody ever tells me.”
As a trained cellist and a former music academic, A.A. Williams isn’t thinking of any one genre when she writes music. The lean into doom and darkness comes from a genuine love of heavy music and a desire to fill her soul.
“It's these people going, ‘Why is it that you think you've got all these metal fans, but you're not metal?’” she says. “It's like, would you like me to be metal? Is that what we're trying to get to here? It makes sense to me while people who enjoy metal enjoy my music. If I made exactly the same songs but I was screaming over them, people would feel differently.
“I just think it's a funny thing to not just accept it for what it is. Would you say to Iron Maiden, ‘Is there a reason this doesn't sound like Nick Cave? Because I thought it was going to sound like Nick Cave.’ It's a strange thing that I don't know where this expectation comes from.”
There’s plenty of heavy swells and dynamic shifts to entice fans of metal, but the softness and emotional approach occupies a space that other heavy music doesn’t.
“I want to make music that makes people feel stuff,” she says. “I want there to be an ebb and flow, that all-encompassing wave that happens live. If you just turn everything on full whack at the beginning and just go for five minutes, you just get a bit passive. Not everything needs to be shouted. Life is not like that. There is a restraint that suits what's being delivered in those moments. It kind of forces people to be brought in.”
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At the end of the day Williams wants her music to resonate with anyone who listens to it.
“I don't ever want to make it so about me that nobody can relate to it,” she says. “These things can be interpreted in a whole bunch of different ways, and people can project their own experiences onto them. I do this with other people's music all the time. You listen to the same song five times in a week, you feel different those five times.
“I have a way deeper connection with songs that I feel are keeping me company somehow. Like they're a little friend that you can put on sometimes if you're not feeling that great. You don't need an actual real person there, but you've got a hand to hold. It’s a real honor to create music that does that for people. There’s something really cool about people using music as a companion when they are not really feeling the greatest.”
Williams is still blown away at the connection people form to her music. People come up to her all the time to tell her how Forever Blue helped them through isolation, or how her songs have touched them in some way. It’s those moments that keep her striving to push her music to its emotional limit.
“Sometimes records offer that in a really great way, and maybe at the time you don't really notice it. Music isn't a tangible thing. But creating that emotional response and that attachment to something and feeling that is a really special thing.”
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Solstice by A.A. Williams is available now via Reigning Phoenix Records. Catch her on tour with Chelsea Wolfe this fall starting Nov. 21 in Utrecht, Netherlands and ending Dec. 19 in Athens, Greece. Get a list of dates below. Get tickets - HERE
