The news may have been trailed by social media for a few days but it has now been revealed that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will release their 10th studio album, “Woodland”, via their Acony Records label on 23rd August 2024. The 10-song collection is a mix of full band tracks and intricate duet performances all tied together with Welch and Rawlings’ distinctive sound and lyricism and confirms the pair’s position at the forefront of the acoustic music scene.
“Woodland” is named for and recorded at Welch and Rawlings’ own Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville. They said, “Woodland is at the heart of everything we do, and has been for the last twenty some years. The past four years were spent almost entirely within its walls, bringing it back to life after the 2020 tornado and making this record. The music is (songs are) a swirl of contradictions, emptiness, fullness, joy, grief, destruction, permanence. Now.”
“Woodland” is their first album since 2020’s “All the Good Times”, a collection of covers and classic folk songs which earned them the 2021 Grammy for Best Folk Album. It’s their first album of new original music since 2017’s “Poor David’s Almanack”.
The track listing is:
1. Empty Trainload Of Sky
2. What We Had
3. Lawman
4. The Bells And The Birds
5. North Country
6. Hashtag
7. The Day The Mississippi Died
8. Turf The Gambler
9. Here Stands A Woman
10. Howdy Howdy
You can pre-order or pre-save “Woodland” here. Vinyl and CD are available to pre-order now from the Acony Records Online Store, and the album will be available worldwide on all formats later in the year.
The duo have shared the first track from the album, ‘Empty Trainload Of Sky’, which you can listen to below.
