Transistor radio m.ward11/13/2023 ![]() By the way, besides the two Bright Eyes releases from earlier this year, this is one album featuring the talents of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.įew can master the art of old time music, fewer still can maintain their own independent singer / songwriter style while trying to play old time music. “Big Boat” features pals Vic Chesnutt and Jenny Lewis on backup vocals for a Jerry Lee Lewis / Elvis Presley pastiche. ![]() “Fuel for Fire” is like an indie version of Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” and I mean that in the best way possible. “Hi-Fi” is a stunner which was echoed by later songs by John Vanderslice. “Sweethearts on Parade” seems to marry Lindsay Buckingham’s guitars from “Second Hand News” with Pixies-esque songwriting and Nick Drake vocals. This subtlety may have made this album easy to overlook, but the listener was deprived for the lack of it. Ward’s voice lilts and swoons over his light guitar work making one of the most delicate albums of the year. Listening to this album made me think of the things in my head I variously associate with the turn of the century to the 20’s, HBO’s Carnivalé, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Sam Mendes’ The Road to Perdition. Pops, scratches, and hollow tin can vocals abound on this tribute to radio songs of old. The album could have easily been called The Golden Age of Wireless had that title not already been taken by Thomas Dolby. When everything else today seemingly needs a blip or a beep, Ward is content letting the spirit of centuries past play his backing band, giving Transistor Radio the sweet spirit your history textbook is lacking.Opening with a gorgeous acoustic guitar cover of the Beach Boys’ “You Still Believe In Me,” Transistor Radio is one of the hidden gems of 2005. And most importantly, where a man with an acoustic guitar can put you right in the middle of this serenity, despite honing his craft in the post-millennial age. Where the internet and digital cable aren’t even part of the vocabulary. Ward’s diverse yet strangely united, collective sound is blanketed with the rustic sense of rootsy, outdoors America-where the back-porch is still home, where the rocking chair sways softly in the breeze, where the sun sets over the horizon and you can see for miles over the amber landscape. But the shots Ward does take here hit hard-”Come back / My little peace of mind,” and “I’ve got lonesome fuel for fire” say so much with so little that I imagine all other so-called lyricists jealous that Ward got to these sentiments before they could. Transistor Radio bears a less introspective nature to its predecessor-nowhere is Ward hoping for “a voice at the end of the line,” instead taking on a more abstract, metaphorical lyrical tone that suits the evasive setting the songs take place in. Ward turns the dial of his own transistor radio and captures the sound, atmosphere, and production of everything he picks up signal on-even if it means the monophonic haze of “One Life Away” (with Jim James) sounds ancient in comparison to the following track, the sweetly disorienting “Sweethearts on Parade.” Somehow, it all makes sense as a whole. ![]() But delve deeper and you find that these songs have as many layers as a towering evergreen trunk carved into cross-section view. Which makes it so difficult to pinpoint Ward’s sound, to pick words to describe it-on the surface, it’s incredibly simple-sounding. ![]() His voice, which is downtrodden and just a little rusty, cracks over these mini-dirges with a timeless charm. When exactly was this album recorded again? Which, perhaps, is his biggest asset-he knows the virtues of ambiguity. Although you can still pick fragments of the original’s sweetly melancholic arrangement out, Ward’s version has gathered some antique charm-it takes on a completely different personality in Ward’s hands. ![]() It’s the Beach Boys’ “You Still Believe In Me,” re-created on two acoustic guitars. A familiar melody chimes through the beginning of Transistor Radio, Matt Ward’s third album and follow-up to the extraordinary Transfiguration of Vincent. ![]()
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