On her new, sixth album, A Mile South of Heaven, Jess Williamson paints a portrait of her life as a songwriter caught between worlds.

The 38-year-old splits her time between Los Angeles and tiny Marfa; feeling not entirely at home either in the "city of dreamers" or in Far West Texas.

The album's closer, The Gem and Mineral Show, finds Williamson attending a celebrity-filled Grammys after-party at the Chateau Marmont, then days later ending up at a rural mineral expo.

There's symbolism in this, too: Williamson, as an artist, is caught between worlds—too country for indie music and too indie for country.

In a conversation that "feels like therapy", Williamson talks to The International Pop Underground's Anthony Carew about playing her new records for her mother, undergoing "indie rock deprogramming", the Plains record she made with Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, and how A Mile South of Heaven and her debut LP, 2014's Native State, are in conversation with each other.

Feature image: Jackie Lee Young