WINNING LAP

MANY GUITARISTS WONDERED if the Guitar Hero video game craze would spawn a new generation of bona fide guitar heroes. We now have our answer: Yasmin Williams. After mastering Guitar Hero 2 as a youngster, she transferred her finger dexterity into a lap-style tapping technique that is nothing short of extraordinary. Williams is quite capable of playing traditional upright fingerstyle too, and she alternates between the two positions, sometimes flipping her guitar approach mid-song. Like Kaki King, Williams has a highly inquisitive mind that leads her to try everything from playing with hammers and bows to exploring harp guitar and kora, and experimenting with an arsenal of effects. Since she sits down and often has the acoustic on her lap like a steel player, her percussive approach is distinctive, and she’ll even use the instrument as a table, setting her kalimba on it and playing it when she’s not plucking guitar strings.

When her hands are fully occupied, Williams makes use of her feet by donning tap shoes and tapping on a board to add more percussion to her mix. and 2021’s  (Spinster) are very easy on the ears. Her compositions are interlaced with lovely ebbs and flows, and sound as natural as water cascading along a mountainside. Both albums are excellent acoustic chill mood plays.