M. Ward

M. Ward has a voice that sounds like it was forged by time, weather and steel. It crackles and breaks and sounds like it's perpetually coming from a broken radio. Live, he plays like a man running from the devil - baseball cap lowered grimly over his eyes, frenzied fingers picking at a guitar which seems to writhe around in his grip.

He began with Duet For Guitars Vol. 2 an album that was picked up by Giant Sand's Howe Gelb and released on his label Ow Om. With sizable underground attention, End of Amnesia (2001) was released shortly after on Future Farmer. His most recent couple of albums however have garnered the most attention, Transfiguration of Vincent (2003) and the untouchable Transistor Radio (2005), an album which neatly encompasses everything that is to love about Ward's music.

The songs draw from the kind of forgotten American folk that never needed to be prefixed with 'psych-' or 'freak-'. Folk and country from porches, barns and bars a thousand miles from anywhere you know. It's willing warmth in escapism.