Record of the Month

I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there!    

Gillian Welch is one of those artists that you love, hate or have never heard of. 

Me? Love her. 

Her 2000 (?) disk Time (the Revelator) remains one of my favourite disks of all time.  She would fit into the Americana / Appalachian music categories. Oddly, she's from Los Angeles, but has been drawn to this music. 

Welch's voice is unique and honestly, would take some time to appreciate. She has always released her music under her own name,  but each one of those has been a collaboration with her musical and life partner, David Rawlings. 

Their new disk, Woodland Studios (the name of their studio which was ruined in a tornado0, is just out and credited to both artists. Even more, previous disks had Rawlings backing up Welch. Here, they trade off songs with Rawlings taking lead on about half the tunes. 

As with all (or at least most) of their stuff, arrangements are sparse. I might be exaggerating a bit. Rarely is there anything but Welch's voice and Rawling's guitar and harmony

"The Bells and the Birds" is one of those few exceptions. An additional guitar and a keyboard are also present. Now and again, there is a stray harmonica ("Turf the Gambler").  "What We Had" has the most instrumentation with stings and {gasp} drums! ....albeit very very very low key drums. 

I like Welch's songs more than Rawlings, but that's says more about me than him. I'm used to her vocals, and more unfamiliar to him as a lead vocalist. That might take time for me. 

"What We Had" sounds like a discarded cut from Neil Young's Comes a Time disk. Honestly, that is a high compliment, as that is one of my favourite albums of all time. Really liking "Howdy Howdy", "Her Stands a Woman" and "Empty Trainload of Sky". 

Woodland Studios is a great listen. It's very low key, sparse, as I mentioned and still extremely compelling. Is it as good as Time (the Revelator)? No, but nothing is going to get to that quality. It's a tough one to beat.