10. Gillian WelchTime (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch takes this essence of Americana, bluegrass and alternative country, but distils it into something that, deceptively, appears to be much more simple. If you listen to the guitar work though, it’s actually not that simple and neither are the lyrics, but the pace is slowed down, so it also brings what I love about artists like Low or Codeine – artists that bring – the – tem – po – down. So she takes those bluegrass ideas, the resonance of bluegrass, the way the strings sound as they’re vibrating – especially on the ballads – and slows it down and reduces this to its essence. I love her voice, I love the sound of her mid-60s Gibson, I love David Rawlings’ harmonic play on the fretboard, but particularly on this record there are two key songs: there’s ‘Time (The Revelator)’ and ‘I Dream A Highway’. They just take me somewhere, they take me on a journey that I wish I could go down as a songwriter, you know these voyages of self-reflective, contemplative melancholy, which are beautiful trips.
