, the first collection of original material jointly billed to lifelong collaborators and , takes its name from the East Nashville studio the pair have owned since 2001. Central to the duo’s creative life, Woodland Studios is where Welch and Rawlings write and record the music they issue under a variety of guises—they’ve only recently started sharing above-the-title credit, after years of alternating between Welch solo affairs and such projects as Dave Rawlings Machine—through their Acony imprint. It was nearly lost in the devastating tornadoes that swept through Nashville in March of 2020, ripping the roof off the studio and forcing Welch and Rawlings to rescue all their master tapes and gear in the middle of the storm.
They managed to salvage everything, yet the building itself required extensive repairs, a project that continues to this day. As they rebuilt, Welch and Rawlings continued to create music, first regrouping with , a Grammy-winning collection of folk and country covers cut in their living room, then writing the songs that form . Names may be fungible in the duo’s universe, but they’re meaningful.
Here, the shared billing highlights the way that Welch and Rawlings are intertwined throughout , acting as one as they sing harmonies and trade leads. The way the pair weave their voices is one of the reasons doesn’t sound nearly as spartan as albums like 2011’s . There’s a palpable warmth to their interplay that extends to the recording itself.
Gratef.