M. Ward tips his hat to those that have inspired him

By Amy Kaufman
Published: February 17th, 2009 | 4:30am

Though his casts of characters have altered slightly, the elusively hip DIY folk-rock relic M. Ward is back with a new set of phonographic fables. Hold Time (Merge) is a sentimentally orchestrated bravado to the great American-root riff.

An institution in the Portland, Oregon, indie scene, Matt Ward has never been shy from the eight-bar attribution; instead, he’s known to wholeheartedly embrace being a product of his generation. Raised on a hearty diet of Johnny Cash, gospel, and classical music from birth, Ward noted, “I started to process it before I can remember.” He’ll ramble off a list that includes everyone from Ry Cooder to Thurston Moore, but if you follow him back to the age of 15, you’ll learn that it was the Beatles iconoclast George Harrison who inspired Ward to pick up that $50 Carlos acoustic guitar and some Beatles songbooks, and start his recording career in the basement of his parents home.

Chord by chord, Ward began retracing the footsteps of the modern masters, studying classic song structures, becoming encyclopedic in his ability to emanate his idols. So it comes as no surprise that the multifaceted musician himself could fall into the “kitsch” category.

The subject of much debate, Ward has been placed alongside such pervasive lyricists as Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, but Ward’s strongest suit, his fondness of intricately knit finger picking, is most emblematic of the late John Fahey, who fathered in the steel-string guitar as a solo instrument. Instrumental in organizing a tribute album, I am the Resurrection: A Tribute to John Fahey (Vanguard Records), Ward was honored to shine a spotlight on the slow-burning master, who finally gained a much-overdue following just years before his death in early 2000. “He has been a huge inspiration for years and to help in gathering a group of people for a good cause was amazing. It was especially good to talk to European journalists about Fahey because most of them had never heard his music.”

So if 2005’s Transistor Radio pays tribute to the antiquated days of analog radio and 2006’s Post-War to a cultural response to WWII, Hold Time is a bit harder to place; giving equal face time to both the highs and lows that make up the American-rock experience. From grand-scale, highly orchestrated pop parades, to the more delicately constructed, acoustic ballads, Ward places an emphasis on what drives creativity.

It’s quite obvious, as somewhat of a master of conceptualization, that Ward is moved by a lineage that spans the previous decade. The lushly constructed pop tunes that fill Hold Time are crafted on the foundations of classic American chord progression, leaving a familial air to linger. “Every M. Ward record I’ve ever made begins with the process of going through old 4-track tapes that I’ve been making since I started playing guitar when I was 15,” Ward explained. “The songs morph over time and take each other’s bridges, shrink and expand.”

But for the softer side of the album, Ward approaches the simplistic subtleties innate to folk ballads, and with a worldly knowledge he dons a new cap as the mild-mannered mentor, handing down life lessons at every turn. Ward addresses the youth in “For Beginners,” saying, “They say the original sinners never felt a drop of pain / Until that second in the garden, then they felt it each and every day / So draw back your bows, you hunters who have never felt that plain / All the absolute beginners, they are safe in the shade for today.”

In solitary confinement, Ward painstakingly creates the opuses that serve as a guiding light for the generation, but to iron out the edges, he calls on a crew of sturdy collaborators, from Portland pals Rachel Blumberg (percussion) and instrumentalists Adam Selzer and Mike Mogis to newfound friends from east to west, Peter Broderick on strings, DeVotchka violinist Tom Hagerman, percussionist Than Luu, drummer Scott McPherson, and soulful duets with Granddaddy’s Jason Lytle, and the She of She & Him, Zooey Deschanel.

A bone-chilling duet with one of folk’s finest, Lucinda Williams, sets a sweltering tone as Ward’s pastoral howl and Williams’s scraggly coos collide into terse harmonies covering the classic Don Gibson love song “Oh Lonesome Me.”

Following the kick off of the Hold Time tour in Buffalo, New York, on February 16, Ward will make his way through the United States, hopping overseas for a brief, four-stop European tour and closing off the season at Coachella Music and Arts Festival on April 17.

After that, Ward’s unpaved road is sure to blossom through and again, and the possibility of a super-group album consisting of long-time collaborators Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James under the pseudonym “Monsters of Rock” is rumored to have a debut sometime in 2010. Until then, Ward wishes all the readers of Venus Zine “a sublime ’09.”