M.+ward

"Several times, as I listened to M. Ward's Supernatural Thing, I asked myself what year it was. Was it 1952, and was I listening to a track from the Harry Smith Anthology? Was it 1972, and was I eavesdropping on the recording session for After the Gold Rush?No, it's 2023, and M. Ward is one of the special contemporary artists who invite such questions. Ward has clearly mastered the whole vocabulary of American popular music and made serious decisions about how to employ it for his own ends.

"I first heard Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco. I was about 20 years old and didn't know much about Billie's records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar - some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life. Ten years later in 2006 I recorded an electric guitar instrumental version of "I'm A Fool To Want You" for my album Post-War."

M. Ward - End Of Amnesia (2001) {Spunk-Inertia URA122}
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© 2005 M. Ward / Spunk / Inertia Records | URA122
Indie Rock / Indie Folk / Rock / Americana / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

M.Ward's second solo enterprise verifies the artist as one of those few songwriters who stand between the cracks of time, where he spins a hallucinatory, new universe out of old-world roots. Indeed, there's a real down-home, unpolished luster to End of Amnesia, both in execution and in songwriting, that gives it a timeless, old-fashioned pallor. And yet there's also something just slightly off in the songs, a strange, disembodied quality that seems to come at least partly from an ulterior place, be it real or imagined. That attribute is precisely what gives the music such a singular, distinctive sound and vision. Ward comes off like a sort of one-man the Band with nothing but a beat-up guitar and his sepia croak of a voice.

M. Ward - Post-War (2006) {4AD CAD2611CD}
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© 2006 4AD Ltd. | CAD2611CD
Indie Rock / Indie Folk / Rock / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

Laconic California indie minstrel M. Ward's fifth offering is a thrift shop photo album filled with histories that may or may not have been, dust bowl carnival rides, and slices of sunlit Western Americana so thick that you need a broom to sweep up the bits that fall off of the knife. Ward makes records that sound like he just wandered in off the street with a few friends and hit the record button, but what would feel lazy and unfocused in less confident hands comes off like a tutorial in old-school songwriting and performance that hearkens back to the days of Hank Williams and Leadbelly if they had had access to a modern-day studio.

M. Ward - Transfiguration Of Vincent (2003) {Matador Records OLE 5782}
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© 2003 Matador Records | OLE 5782
Indie Rock / Rock / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

M. Ward's Transfiguration of Vincent is nothing less than spectacular. From the buoyant, late-Beatlesque "Vincent O'Brien" to the dank, shuffling, south of the border groove on "Sad, Sad Song," the troubadour manages to capture a timeless folkiness and match it with a surreal and sparkling sense of nostalgia that clearly echoes Tom Waits. Recorded with the Old Joe Clarks as the backup band, Transfiguration is rooted firmly in old-time Americana, yet M. Ward's take on country and particularly his vocals somehow fit perfectly with Giant Sand, Sparklehorse, and California's surreal, pastoral psych-pop outfit Grandaddy (whose Jason Lytle contributed some field recordings).

M. Ward - Transistor Radio (2005) {Merge Records URA142}
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© 2005 Merge Records / Spunk / Inertia Records | URA142
Indie Rock / Indie Folk / Rock / Americana / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

M. Ward's latest is a rough-cut Americana diamond, one crafted not simply from folk and bluegrass but also 50s AM radio, the saloon cabaret of studio-era Hollywood, and good old-fashioned indie rock. It's artists like M. Ward who make me contemplate why I write about music. I get my skin tingling to the acoustic guitars and I'm just thinking "Jesus, is this what it's about?" I'm trying to put the feeling this music gives me into words in an attempt to understand it, to convey how great it is and why, and maybe convince you that it's worth your cash or your bandwidth, and it occurs to me that I'm unsure why I do it– why I need to do it– and that, in the end, it's because I'm enjoying this and I want you to enjoy it, too.

M. Ward - Migration Stories (2020) {Anti- 87735-2}
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© 2020 M. Ward Records / Anti- | 87735-2
Indie Rock / Indie Folk / Rock / Americana / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

M. Ward's new album 'Migration Stories' marks his tenth studio release and his debut for ANTI- Records. Recorded at Arcade Fire’s Montreal studio, the collection is languid and hazy, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy as it reckons with a world that feels more divided than ever before, even as its inhabitants grow more inextricably linked by the day.

M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion (2012) {Bella Union BELLACD330}
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© 2012 Bella Union | BELLACD330
Indie Rock / Rock / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

Matthew Stephen Ward's seventh studio album was recorded in eight different studios and boasts 18 guest musicians, including Rachel Cox (Oakley Hall), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes), Tom Hagerman (Devotchka), Tobey Leaman (Dr. Dog), and She & Him's X chromosome Zooey Deschanel, just to name a few. Such a heroic production itinerary should surely yield appropriately epic results, but Ward's Wasteland Companion feels as organic and understated as anything he's done thus far.

She & Him - Volume 3 (2013) {UNSPK URA426 - featuring M. Ward}
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© 2013 UNSPK / She & Him | URA426
Indie Pop / Alternative Country / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

Always looking backward to the sunny sounds of the '60s, She & Him often feel like a band out of time, a pair of pop dreamers born too late to be a part of the musical scene they've painstakingly crafted a pastiche of with their third album, Volume 3. Like the previous two volumes, the album finds collaborators Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward diving headfirst into the sunny, lovestruck sounds of Brill Building pop with a splash of country twang for good measure. While this means the album doesn't do a lot to distinguish itself from the pair's early efforts, it certainly doesn't diminish its effortlessly enjoyable sound.

M. Ward - More Rain (2016) {Bella Union–[PIAS] BELLA521CD}
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© 2016 Bella Union / [PIAS] | BELLA521CD
Indie Rock / Indie Folk / Rock / Americana / Alternative Singer-Songwriter / Adult Alternative Pop

With his static-dusted voice and predilection for early rock antiquity, M. Ward has always come across as one of his generation's more understated bards. Interpreting the ever-deepening subtleties of his catalog generally requires repeated listens, and such is the case with his ninth solo effort, the appropriately moody More Rain. Easing in with a minute-long rainstorm soundscape, he leads off with the dreamy acoustic gallop of "Pirate Dial," a genial folk-pop hymn perfectly suited for the patient rotations of a vinyl long-player. A stuttering guitar groove on the Neko Case-aided "Time Won't Wait" quickens the album's pulse, setting up the similarly paced lead single, "Confession," a classic Ward track replete with a rich vein of warm backing vocals and soaring trumpet solo.