GILLIAN Welch insists "this really is the sunniest record I've ever made". That it is not to say it is actually sunny, but as with the climax to a Jacobean tragedy, the only way is up on her fourth album of ageless, austere Appalachian mountain music.
Collaborating once more with co-songwriter David Rawlings, this is her most transparent set of stark stories of restless travellers, trains, highways and death, sung in a voice as solitary as confinement. Recording began with the first wholly unaccompanied performances of Welch's career on the mournful One Little Song and her haunting re-workings of the traditional Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor and I Had A Real Good Mother And Father, before a week of band sessions, working 16 to 20 hours a day. Whether solo or accompanied by dobro, fiddle and guitar, nothing is wasted, not a word or note. These are soul journeys by the most direct route through Welch's land of shadows.
Updated: 11:09 Thursday, June 26, 2003
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