M. Ward: in a word - mutha!

Don Bob Dylan, the legend of mythical proportions, launched a withering attack on contemporary rock bands in the programme notes for his latest American tour.

"I know there are groups at the top of the charts that are hailed as the saviours of Rock'n'Roll and all that, but they are amateurs. They don't know where the music comes from. I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times... I'd probably turn to something like mathematics. That would interest me. Architecture would interest me. Something like that."

Immaculate deceptions by industry combined with the media’s neo-sycophancy and the result is the EQ-rise… Yeah, the Entertainment Quotient; 'fame' of an immediate but ephemeral stature… Music industry, as well as the film one, is well geared up to ‘bigging-up’ [hyping/influencing liking/buying] for a week but it can never sustain or, thank the Almighty for it, control taste at any length of time. There used to be radio success, then proper charts followed by club hits but now we have - media picks. Usually having nothing to do with quality…

Now, click on eraser-tool and then write down - ‘M. Ward Presents Transistor Radio’. This is a disc that plugs into the days when ether mattered, when it resonated like songs on it could change the world. For few individual it did once and M. Ward’s was ‘un’o’em… That’s the time the artist celebrates, the “open format ones of the kind” which is, in the world specialized in one ‘art form’-only - profit raking - forever lost.

M. Ward songs are stark, simple, played as if he were sitting on a porch in Louisiana from where a vista for miles opens and reflects it by taking serene gazes at the time when living seemed more straightforward and most people knew their limitations. ‘You Still Believe In Me’ opens the proceedings gently, softly and ethereally to be followed by a parade of tunes that soothe, stimulate and enchant. This is ‘blues’ [with strong flavouring of country, folk, pop and soft-rock] but not as you know, it is modern, enigmatic, advanced…

Songs such as ‘One Life Away’, ‘Fuel For Fire’, ‘Radio Campaign’, ‘I’ll Be Yr Bird’ and ‘Lullaby + Exile’, although pulling at heart’s strings are never melancholic, melodramatic, miserable, but delicate, elegant and mysterious. With guests such as Jim James (My Morning Jacket), John Parish (PJ Harvey) and Vic Chesnutt, the laidback and pensive mood has its beat upped on ‘Four Hours In Washington’, ‘Regenration #1’ [an instrumental where Shadows-meet-Sergio Mendez-meet-Herb Alpert-meet-Deep Purple], ‘Big Boat’ [bar-piano driven ditty], but his is generally a low-geared, pensive, wistful songbook.

The fourth studio album by Mr Ward is full of intriguing songs that have been attracting attention of fellow musicians with Grandaddy, Cat Power, Giant Sand and Bright Eyes having done covers. What’s more, he’s featured collaborating with the magical Cat Power on her DVD ‘Speaking For Trees’ - on 19-minute CD; Ms Chan Marshall also performs ‘Sad Sad Song’ on the release…

A word of advice on M. Ward: his songs are intoxicating. ‘Transistor Radio’ is for all music lovers everywhere.

8/10