Gillian Welch and David Rawlings announce new album and tour, share 'Empty Trainload of Sky'

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings have announced their 10th studio album together.

The duo are back with Woodland, the first collection of songs written by Welch and Rawlings in seven years. The 10-track album was recorded entirely at the East Nashville studio that bears its name, which the duo has owned for over twenty years.

“Woodland is at the heart of everything we do, and has been for the last twenty some years,” Welch and Rawlings say. “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.”

The Woodland journey begins with 'Empty Trainload of Sky,' released on Friday. It's a full band track featuring the first Welch lead vocals on a song released under her name since 2011's The Harrow & The Harvest. 

Alongside the track and album announcement, comes a US tour which kicks off tomorrow, 23 July, in South Burlington, Vermont and finishes up in Port Chester, New York in December.

Woodland follows up the duo's Grammy-winning 2020 covers album, All The Good Times (Are Past & Gone). 

Listen below to the first single, 'Empty Trainload of Sky', lifted from Woodland below.