Advertisement
Zero Mile PresentsM. WARD
Folk Bitch Trio
TUE, 1 OCT 2024 at 08:00PM EDT
Ages: All Ages
Doors Open: 07:00PM
OnSale: Fri, 26 Jul 2024 at 10:00AM EDT
Announcement: Tue, 23 Jul 2024 at 12:00PM EDT
For Beginners: The Best of M. Ward is a collection for
M. Ward fans of any vintage. Gathering together 14 tracks
from across his Merge Records discography, including the
newly recorded song “Cry,” For Beginners is both a primer
and a mixtape of favorites sequenced in a way that gives them
new life.
Beginning with “Chinese Translation” and “Poison Cup”
from 2006’s Post-War, For Beginners drops in on Ward as
he expands his prowess in the studio. His singular cover of
David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” from 2003’s Transfiguration of
Vincent, breaks out into the exuberant “Never Had Nobody
Like You” from 2009’s Hold Time. Rather than the neat
evolutionary line suggested by a chronological arrangement,
what holds For Beginners together is Ward’s impeccable skill
as a songwriter, which remains in focus as his sound expands
from low-fi home recordings to electric, radio-ready stompers.
Serendipitously timed for release during Merge Records’ 35-
year anniversary, this celebration of one of the label’s most
beloved artists includes “Cry”—his first new recording on
Merge since 2018—a stripped-down cover of the Godley
& Creme pop classic featuring Melbourne, Australia’s Folk
Bitch Trio.
M. Ward on “Cry”:
“Cry” was recorded in a Tasmanian modern art
museum called MONA. I sat at the end of a long
hallway a few feet away from Anselm Kiefer’s sculpture
of a 20-foot-high stack of lead books, and standing
to my left and right around a single microphone
were Melbourne’s Folk Bitch Trio; we rehearsed and
recorded “Cry” in about 30 minutes. A pleasure to
add this song to a collection of some of my favorite
memories of music-making during the first decade of
record-creating with my friends at Merge.
The song is the perfect capstone for a collection of this
nature, summing up much of Ward’s power as a musician:
the richness he’s capable of achieving in sparse recordings,
his knack for collaboration, and his ability to see through
to the soul of a meticulously crafted pop song—as much a
means of looking forward to what’s to come of his own work
as it is a callback to his past.
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Terminal West, 887 W Marietta St NW, Ste C,Atlanta,GA,United States
Tickets