Jess Williamson's 'A Mile South of Heaven' Is a Sun-Bleached Masterpiece of Room Sound
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Bonnie Whitmore’s bass sits low and unhurried under everything, and because the band cut the anchor tracks together at Sunset Sound’s Studio 3, the kick and bass share one acoustic signature instead of being glued together afterward. Jamie Douglass plays behind the beat in a way that would be impossible to edit in.
The Spatial Dynamics: Shooter Jennings produced, Mark Rains engineered, and Pete Lyman mastered — and the chain preserves an unusual amount of air. John Schreffler’s pedal steel and dobro are treated as atmosphere, panned wide and left slightly unresolved, while Chris Masterson’s electric guitar and banjo stay dry and close. Williamson has said the aim was plain: “Everything you hear is like a real person playing a real instrument in a room together.”
Standout Performance
Eleanor Whitmore is the record’s MVP, and it isn’t close. Across the twelve songs she plays fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar, Mellotron, piano and strings, and sings the background vocal on “Dark Day in Dallas” — the one track Williamson didn’t write alone, co-credited with Lola Kirke, Courtney Marie Andrews, Katie Pearlman and Cornelia Murr. She never once sounds like a session player filling a hole.
Why It’s Certified
Jennings picked the band himself, which Williamson described as the point: “when the producer picks the players, it creates a working relationship and a shorthand.” You can hear the shorthand. “Goodbye to All That” borrows its title and its premise from Joan Didion’s essay about leaving New York; Williamson wrote it as a farewell to Los Angeles and then, she says, the song changed her mind. That reversal is the whole album’s engine — twelve tracks, forty-six minutes, no finish line.
No Depression put it plainly: “Williamson has never sounded better than she does now.” Pitchfork, scoring it 8.4, called it the strongest songwriting of her career. Both are right, and neither mentions the best part, which is that you can hear the floor.