Woodland is the name of Gillian Welch and David Rawling’s studio in Nashville, and it’s also the name of their new album. On Woodland, the duo continue to show their deep connection as collaborators. The album has a wide open sound that features their seemlessly blended and intimately recorded vocals, and the light touch of a backing band that includes drums, bass, pedal steel, banjo, and airy strings on tunes like "What We Had" and "Hashtag". "Lawman" and "The Bells and the Birds" have a lovely somberness, and the album as a whole has a "live off the floor" feeling to it that we hear less and less of these days. Woodland will stay in our "recently played" column for the forseeable future.
We interviewed Gillian and Dave back in 2001 for Tape Op #85.
Tape Op is a bi-monthly magazine devoted to the art of record making.
Ina previous blog post, we saw the beginnings of this project. Damian Wagner was in issue 64 - here's a crazy project where he's amplifying the sound of the earth! "After destroying 3 subwoofers and having to completely redesign the
playback engine I...
Our busy friends over at the Future of Music Coalition have released a study, “Same Old Song: An Analysis of Radio Playlists in a Post FCC-Consent Decree World”. Check it out - basically the major radio stations owners - Clear Channel,...
Check out the new St. Vincent LP, All Born Screaming, and video for the track "Broken Man" out now. The album was recorded and mixed by Cian Riordan who interviewed Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) for Tape Op #134.
Read the Tape Op...
James Beaudreau is a former member of the Billy Nayer Show (1998-2003) and started Workbench Recordings - a netlabel, blog, and recording studio in NYC. They release one track every Tuesday along with artwork and texts about the creative process,...
I just read an excellent new essay called The Case Against Free in which the author suggests that the "free economy" is drying up the economic resources needed to make quality creative works. The article focuses on recordings. It's a well...
I received several CDs recently, notably the Monsters of Folk (Jim James, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis) and Porcupine Tree's The Incident, that I really wanted to listen to but was unable to hear. Why? Because these promo discs were...
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-07-09/features/0807080422_1_rolling-stone-new-yorker-classical-music-magazine It's an eclectic collection and somehow we made the cut. We're guessing it was an inside job... Thanks Chicago!
October is starting off with a bang and a long list of great new releases. Here are a few notables.
Hard Quartet - Heel HighwayThis new indie rock "supergroup" consists of Stephen Malkmus (Tape Op #15), Jim White, Emmett Kelly, and Matt Sweeney....