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.
By Justin Douglas
When you hear a particularly moving piece of music, and you get that little chill that runs from the top of your scalp down your spine, that’s a specific network in your brain logging that music into your memory....
What? Huh? That's right, now you can "use classic studio gear online." This guy Fredrik created some way to remotely set compressors and equalizers and then pass your audio through them. Pretty genius and probably the wave of the future for certain...
It wasn’t that long ago that when you went into the studio you basically disappeared from the rest of the world into a place with few (or no) windows, and low light. Where time seemed to have a way of getting distorted, finding yourself rolling...
Our friend and Tape Op contributor Neal Casal left us one year ago today on August 26, 2019.
Since then, a team of his close friends dug into the archive of music and photography he left behind to create items raising awareness and funds...
So I just noticed an email in my inbox from a PR person with the headline: "XXXXX MICS FEATURED IN THE BEATLES?: ROCK BAND? VIDEO GAME". What's next? "Shure SM57 seen briefly in a movie"? "Rob Thomas sings into wrong side of a mic in a video"? Oh...
Check out the new video and single "Honeycrash" from SASAMI (#157). Produced by Jennifer Decilveo, who is interviewed in our May issue.
Listen to "Honeycrash"
Check out our interviews with SASAMI and Jennifer here:
SASAMI Tape...
My best friend and business partner, John Baccigaluppi, is moving out of the old building that houses his studio The Hangar (along with his Tape Op office) and had been part of his life since 1990. I played on some of the earliest records from...
Tape Op contributor Allen Farmelo has written a fairly in-depth post regarding his processes for capturing and processing sounds on his wonderful blog. Check it out. I bet even some experienced engineers will take note of some of the ideas Allen puts...
The Decemberists' ninth album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, is out now. In 2003 I got a call from Colin Meloy about maybe recording his band, The Decemberists. Tape Op contributor, Adam Selzer, had already recorded some tracks for what...