Donovan Woods’ new album ‘Without People’ is now available everywhere now, including tracks with Rhys Lewis and Katie Pruitt.
A decade into his career and Donovan Woods’ songwriting remains wholly invested in exploring the human condition as he mines small moments to find greater truths. Donovan Woods’ new album, Without People, is alive with intimacy and connection at a surreal time when we’re all in desperate need of both. The album is available today everywhere – listen here.
Today, Woods also shares a dance interpretation of the album’s “We Used To” conceived and performed by Ariana and the Rose. The video is the most recent addition to the Donovan Woods With People Project which sees the songwriter supporting independent creators and bridging art and music culture during the pandemic.
From the snippets of warm chatter and lush strings on the title track to the gossamer layers of harmonies on “Seeing Other People”, the aching loneliness of “Grew Apart”, the tenderness of love’s redeeming grace on the evocative Katie Pruitt duet “She Waits For Me To Come Back Down”, Woods captures sentiments about wanting to be alone – until you’re suddenly lonely – and why we so often chase something we’re never going to get. Each song is a reminder that relationships are what bind us, and what matters most is how we treat one another and whether we’re truly listening and trying to understand experiences distinct from our own.
Woods recruited co-writers Tucker Beathard, Ashley Monroe, Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson, Thomas Finchum and Katie Pruitt to create a lyrically-forward collection of songs bound by themes of the human condition. Long-time collaborator and producer, James Bunton and vocal producer Todd Clark (Dua Lipa, Noah Kahan, Phillip Phillips) round off the musically diverse creative team behind the album.
“In the middle of a pandemic, as the truth of our environmental devastation sinks in, in the thick of protests reshaping our thoughts on policing and crystallizing the reality of white supremacy at work in all corners of our society, it feels silly to write about relationships,” says Woods. “But what I discover time and time again is that my brain wants to fixate on and examine small moments that may have seemed inconsequential but have ended up shaping my sense of myself. So if we are coming to the end of something (and it feels like we are), I can say that I tried my hardest to write truthfully about the people I’ve loved and the things I did wrong, and add my little verse to the story of what it feels like to be a person, longing for connection, and then longing for solitude, and then longing for connection. All in all, I think the record sounds like the times it was made in. Turbulent and lonesome.”
‘Without People’ tracklist:
1. “Without People”
2. “The Last Time I Saw You”
3. “Seeing Other People”
4. “We Used To” (
5. “She Waits For Me To Come Back Down feat. Katie Pruitt”
6. “Clean Slate”
7. “Man Made Lake”
8. “Interlude”
9. “Lonely People feat. Rhys Lewis”
10. “Grew Apart”
11. “Whole Way Home”
12. “High Season”
13. “God Forbid”
14. “Whatever Keeps You Going”
