Thanks to the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? Gillian Welch is practically a household name. What those people might not know is that ever since the Coen Brothers’ movie, Welch has been playing more upbeat material as well; it’s possible that too much of George Clooney mugging along with “Man Of Constant Sorrow” will do that to anyone. Time (The Revelator) was Welch’s first album after O Brother, and while the songs still pass by at a languid, unhurried pace, it’s not the dark and mournful album that Hell Among The Yearlings and Revival were.

For quite a while, Welch and partner in crime T-Bone Burnett flew under the country radar; during the New Country wave of the early and mid-90s, people like Welch were seen as aping a style whose time had long since passed. Today, it’s clear that Welch isn’t a mere imitator, and suddenly the pop-oriented sound of new country has fallen into steep decline. Now CMT plays BBC documentaries about the success of one Gillian Welch, and the T-Bone Burnett-guided soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a bestseller.