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London-based artist A.A. WILLIAMS has unveiled a captivating new video for “The Veil,” one of the most delicate and exposed moments on her third studio album Solstice, released 5th June 5 2026 via Reigning Phoenix Music. Built around piano and voice, the song strips away the record’s heavier textures to reveal an unguarded portrait of longing, perseverance and the quiet pain of accepting what cannot be changed.
Directed and filmed by Jake Owens, the accompanying film gives those emotions a dreamlike physical form. Lengths of flowing fabric rise, fall and surround Williams as she performs, creating a sense of movement suspended in time. Its restrained visual language mirrors the vulnerability of the music, allowing the smallest gestures to resonate.
Stream the track HERE.
Listen to Solstice HERE.
A.A. WILLIAMS reflects:
“’The Veil was’ always a bit of an outlier on Solstice, being the only stripped-back track on the record. A simple song, a song of trying your hardest, a song of yearning for change, a resignation to failure. This video matches the song’s softness perfectly. It has a dreamlike quality that re- centres the meaning of the song for me, creating a hazy memory of a distant struggle. A gentle treatment of sorrowful moments, the delicately flowing material emphasises the vulnerability of the text with simple, quiet beauty.”
The film’s weightless appearance was achieved through an unusually tactile production process. Owens recorded Williams performing at double speed and shot at 60 frames per second so that the footage could be slowed by half while remaining synchronised with the song. Approximately 40 metres of fabric, five fans, a hair dryer and a leaf blower created the movement, with all effects captured live in camera rather than added digitally.
Owens explains:
“The concept for the video came to me the first time I heard Solstice, something about this track jumped out as having potential for a cool music video. The pace of the song informed my idea that the video should be slow motion, with lots of dramatic movement from the various fabrics.”
Solstice has earned widespread praise for its balance of intimacy and intensity. Metal Hammer UK called it “Her most dynamic and dramatic effort to date,” while Prog highlighted its “Post-rock flavour, building tension and intensity.” The album has also been praised by Kerrang!, Visions and Metal Hammer Germany, whose review specifically singled out “The Veil” as a piano-only song that retains the record’s darkness.
Following summer performances and appearances alongside A Perfect Circle, A.A. WILLIAMS returns to stages across the UK and Europe this winter supporting Chelsea Wolfe. The run begins 21st November in Utrecht and includes Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, Warsaw, Vienna, Paris and London, among other stops.
Full dates and tickets can be found here: https://aawilliams.music/pages/tickets.
Solstice is available now via Reigning Phoenix Music: https://aawilliams.rpm.link/solsticePR.
About A.A. Williams
Having made her debut live appearance at the prestigious Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands off the back of a self-titled EP, A.A. WILLIAMS has since toured across the globe with the likes of CULT OF LUNA, EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY, RUSSIAN CIRCLES, SLEEP TOKEN and THE SISTERS OF MERCY, as well as establishing herself as a headline artist – including a show at the iconic Queen Elizabeth Hall inside London’s Southbank Centre.
Standout festival appearances have dovetailed with two album releases – 2020’s “Forever Blue” and 2022’s “As The Moon Rests” – both of which received widespread critical acclaim and placed A.A. WILLIAMS at the forefront of a wave of artists taking textured, epic and folk-rooted heavy music into new and progressive directions. A BBC session at the legendary Maida Vale Studios only bolstered her credentials.
Never one to rest on her laurels, she has also released a series of ‘companion pieces’: a collaborative single with Japanese post-rock titans MONO (“Exit In Darkness”); a solo covers collection recorded during 2020’s pandemic lockdown – “Songs From Isolation” – that drew praise from THE CURE’s Robert Smith and SMASHING PUMPKINS’ Billy Corgan; and perhaps most impressively, 2021’s arco, in which the multi-instrumentalist completely reworked her debut EP from rock instrumentation to string ensemble, drawing on her classical training to stunning effect. Now signed to Reigning Phoenix Music, her latest album “Solstice”, released 5th June 2026 – has already turned heads since its release, with Rock Sound calling her “one of the most vital voices in modern alternative culture” and Kerrang! declaring her work “typically spell-binding.”
Photo credit: Jake Owens
FIND A.A. WILLIAMS ONLINE
