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.
I just finished reading your article, "My Unwritten (Until Now) "Rules" in the studio," Tape Op #85. Let me offer up a few words of wisdom on your well-written points.
- Don't play music by other artists: In 1978 I was working with a...
Well friends, there were just too many great albums this year, and so here is the "Rest of the Best".
Andy and John both had super extensive year end favorites lists and make up the bulk of this list. I will need a good chunk of 2023 to dig in to...
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...
Al Kooper produced this band in the '80s. They really knew how to argue - with him, with each other and probably with anyone in a ten-mile radius. Al edited out the music and kept the wonderful conversation, releasing it on one of his limited (300...
A few years ago a Northwest music mag (now defunct) interviewed some Portland "best new band" character and the moron spouted out that nothing had been going on in Portland before his band moved to town - that this was the turning point when...
You know those ads? Yeah, some Photoshop jockey took the GUI of a plug-in and made it look like a piece of outboard gear, a synth or something. Drives me nuts. For years I couldn't figure out if one plug-in, I think it was Trilogy, was "real" or...
Tape Op will once again have a booth at the AES show in San Francisco, CA October 27-29, so please come say hi if you are at the show!
To make it easier for you to attend the show, we are once again giving away free badges to the exhibition area of...
Check out the new track, “Domestic Workers Song,” from Dawn Landes. The song was originally written in 1939 but it’s still relevant and timely, and the recording is a fun sing-a-long romp with nods to The Band and the upstate NY...
We got this letter from J. Robert Lennon, a sometimes contributor here at Tape Op. I figured I'd better answer it. -Larry Crane
"A thought struck me while I was reading Adam Kagan's very informative review of the Chandler Little Devil...