After the war

Yesterday saw the release of Post-War by M. Ward, an album which I've been fortunate enough to get to soak in for the past several weeks already. At this point, it'd probably be a good idea to point out that I had little experience (aside from a few spins through Transistor Radio) with Ward's music before getting my hands on this disc, although I've heard nothing but raves. Post-War gives me little reason to think these people were high. The music on this disc has all the broken-in warmth of a ratty couch in a darkened living room, probably one with fake wood paneling from the mid-'70s. Ward shows a stunning ability to draw from myriad sources (the gritty Delta blues of Son House on "Requiem," Billie Holiday torch ballads on "Poison Cup," the sultry and smoky R&B of, seriously, Sade on "Post-War") and tie them together with his gently raspy voice and spare instrumentation. All of Ward's compositions begin their life on a four-track, and those humble beginnings show through again and again on the record, but his and his engineers' enthusiasm for expanding their sonic vocabulary is admirable, and much like Wilco's pushing of the traditional songwriting envelope on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Post-War shows how it's possible to retain the simplicity of a great melody while spiking it with enough texture to make it new again. I had wanted to get a full-length article into the print edition this week, but forces conspired to keep it out of there. Instead, you're getting the raw interview right here for your enjoyment.

How did your appearance on the Late Show go?

it was a blast--we met dave letterman and the dog from "sex and the city"....

Is touring something you look forward to?

yeah--when i get a nice break in between to sleep and recharge--this tour is especially great because i took a year off from travelling to catch my breath and for the first time i get to tour with the people i recorded the record with--so , im feeling good.

There are a lot of unique vocal treatments on the disc. Is that something you look to replicate when you play live, or do you treat them as distinct arenas when it comes to sound treatment?

the best vocals ever recorded came out of Sun Studios--those are the vocal sounds we were shooting for on this record but crossed with other ideas as it pertained to the song/lyric.

What's your songwriting process like? Do you write pieces and then put them together, or do you write whole songs at once or do you do something else?

there's never been a formula really--the only somewhat constant is that all the songs begin alone and with the 4-track that i've been using since i was in high school--one of the tracks is broken now so its sort of become a three-track now--the only one i know of in existence actually ...

Transistor Radio was a kind of homage to a bygone era in radio--does Post-War come out of any similar overlying concept? It seems like it's consciously divided up into movements or sections.

well the "transistor" record was more of an attempt to create something tangible out of memories of the times when i was a kid and first discovering music/radio--i wanted the new record to sonically go against that sentimentality and try something bolder.

Post-War seems to really reward close listening, i.e. with headphones or loudly in a living room. Was that a natural outgrowth of the recording process, or was it a quality you went in wanting to capture?

every record i've ever made has been an attempt to invent a hybrid between the old 4-track sounds that i grew up recording with and the newer experiences of discovering strange machines and experimenting with weird microphones whose names i cant spell here--a lot of credit is due to my engineers Mike Coykendall and Adam Selzer whose knowledge of the medium can best be described as very, very, very vast.

I read in your bio that you're a fan of David Lynch's films. Me too. His intuitive approach to imagery (meaning not overthinking what an image represents, but rather relying on unconscious associations) is something that I've found equally compelling when applied to lyrical (say, Jeff Tweedy's experiments with cut and paste techniques) or musical (I'm thinking DJ Shadow's Endtroducing) compositions. What kind of influence have his or other filmmakers' work had on you?

there's a ton of free association involved in the process--a melody you stumble on the guitar will remind you of a song from whenever and so you might borrow the tempo or a chord change--and then once the song starts going and it seems to be working you take it to the studio and every once in awhile, usually in the middle of producing a song, the production or chord changes or a lyric will remind you of something you may have seen in a film, or a story you heard when you were a kid--most films go in one ear/eye and out the other but the scenes that a bunch of people like kubrick, lynch, rohmer, almodovar, fellini and mike leigh have made stick around in my head for probably longer than they should and end up coming out in unconscious ways in the recording process ... weird, i know ...

You also talked about some older jazz influences like Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong in your bio. It seems like a lot of current music doesn't like to look back further than the late '60s for inspiration, but there's so much great stuff out there to draw on. Do you feel that
musicians--especially young musicians--aren't getting enough exposure to things like Duke Ellington or even Bach or Beethoven?

what you have here is a good question and one that i honestly dont know the answer to--i still believe that there are millions of Americans who still listen to ellington and bach but most of them have either moved to europe or just don't seem to get around much anymore.


M. Ward plays the Varsity Theater on Tue., Sept. 3 with Shelley Short. 8 p.m. $13/$14 18+. 1308 4th St. SE., Mpls. 612-604-0222.