With the Coronavirus pandemic resulting in widespread lockdown, Canadian singer-songwriter Donovan Woods holed up in a makeshift recording studio in his Toronto home and got to work on his seventh album, the aptly named Without People. It marked something of a change for Woods, whose blend of country-folk and sublime storytelling has garnered widespread critical acclaim, close to 300 million streams to date, and a JUNO Award for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year for his 2018 offering Both Ways.

To create Without People without people, Woods would email files to his producer, James Bunton, and collaborate online with backing musicians and the album’s other contributors, including Nashville singer-songwriter Katie Pruitt and British star Rhys Lewis, who each feature on one of album’s fourteen tracks.

Seeing Other People is an early highlight among those tracks, a softly spoken vocal about jealousy that morphs into an almost orchestral number, while She Waits For Me To Come Back Down is a tender affair documenting a lover’s support of their addict partner that is taken to an extra level with the addition of Pruitt’s own powerful vocals.

As you would expect from Woods, there’s plenty of beautifully introspective efforts such as Clean Slate, a sweet number about new love, and Man Made Lake which explores the complexities of the relationship between a father and his son. But Woods serves up some more rousing numbers too: Grew Apart soars and God Forbid revolves around a violin intro that builds slowly, carefully to a crescendo before the track explodes into its glorious finale.

“This album made me think about how easy life would be without other people, and how useless it would be,” says Woods. “This is what my brain wants to write about, so I suppose my responsibility is to follow it further and further into the most fearsome feelings I’ve got.”

“I dove in deeper on this album than I ever have. So if we are coming to the end of something, 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.”

Coinciding with the release of the album, Woods has unveiled the Donovan Woods With People Project to support independent creators who had been hit hard economically during the pandemic, commissioning art pieces, graphic illustrations and videos inspired by songs from the album. Woods reached out to individuals across the world, from a variety of different backgrounds, and the video for Grew Apart is an example.

It’s a testament to Woods that in recording such an album, in such an extraordinary set of circumstances, he has succeeded in crafting songs and artworks such as these that embrace the very essence of human connection. It’s one of the many successes of Without People, an album to treasure in these difficult, lonely days.

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 (featuring Katie Pruitt)

6. Clean Slate

7. Man Made Lake

8. Interlude

9. Lonely People (featuring Rhys Lewis)

10. Grew Apart

11. Whole Way Home

12. High Season

13. God Forbid

14. Whatever Keeps You Going

Watch the official video for Grew Apart .be">here.

Author: Joe Sharratt

Joe Sharratt is a writer and journalist based in the UK covering music, literature, sport, and travel.