GILLIAN WELCH Soul Journey (Acony/Stony Plain) Rating: NNN Rating: NNN
Now that old-timey songster Gillian Welch is no longer signed to a label willing to bankroll megabuck production jobs that use state-of-the-art studio technology to make her CDs sound like ancient 78s, she’s learning how to get the same low-fi sound much more cheaply by recording at home. Yet Welch’s strange fascination with Depression-era themes and period vernacular, beyond her contrived forlorn way of delivering each song as if her Model-T broke down on the way to the still, is becoming insufferably predictable. She’s in dire need of a new shtick.
