Music to drink tea by
Posts tagged M Ward
She & Him & 500 Days of Summer: One big happy family
0I can’t remember the last time I loved a film as much as (500) Days of Summer. Granted, it was a pretty easy sell to me in the first place. Quirky indie romances with credible leads make up a good portion of my DVD collection. This one towers over all of the others though. No one factor causes this, but everything about it seems to work. A non-linear structure, coming through on the promise that “this isn’t a love story” and boldly ditching a female perspective altogether help. Rattling off a few things like that doesn’t put across just how well this film works though. It even managed to get me back into a cinema for a second watch, which hardly ever happens.
Which leads us to She & Him, the band made of M.Ward and Zooey Deschanel. I’m not sure if I’m using the film as an excuse to post the band or the band as an excuse to praise the film. Either way, both are worthy of being explored. The crossover between the two is muddied somewhat by the video above. It’s the video for Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?, but it’s also directed by 500 Days director Mark Webb and stars Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It doesn’t really tie into the film beyond those elements, but it makes for a nice little aside. And just as the film proved, any opportunity for an over the top, slightly silly dance number is always worth taking.
New M. Ward: ‘To Go Home’
05 years ago
in MP3s
There is something about M. Ward’s music that tends to make me like and dislike it at the same time. Through most of his albums, I find his songs pleasant enough, and while his vocals and guitar work are also top notch, the songs always seem a little too archaic sounding for their own good. Now this isn’t always the case, and there’s always a few songs on each album that manage to shine through. That’s usually the upbeat, jaunty songs from each release in my case, so it’s lucky that the first song I got to hear from his upcoming album, ‘Post-War’, falls into that category.
‘To Go Home’ isn’t particularly groundbreaking if you’re already familiar with previous album ‘Transistor Radio’. Seeing as that was the strongest Ward album though, that isn’t a bad thing. Bringing in the same kind of extra sounds that made that album enjoyable (yay for tinkling pianos) and adding a backing vocal, something that adds to the texture of the song no end. It’s not just any backing vocal either, it’s Neko Case in the background here, whose voice plays off perfectly against Ward’s gruff sound. I’m still not hugely excited by this album, but if I hear a few more songs of this kind of quality, I can myself growing to like it.
‘To Go Home’ is taken from M. Ward’s upcoming album ‘Post-War’, which will be released on August 22 on Merge Records.
