M. WARD: Girl From Conejo Valley

PRESS HERE: M. Ward returns with his eighth solo album, More Rain, which will be released on March 4, 2016 via Merge Records. Ward’s new single, “Girl From Conejo Valley,” is a nostalgic trot through people he used to know and a place he used to be. Having spent the last decade-and-a-half based in the perennially damp Portland, Oregon, the singer-songwriter and producer has learned how to shine through the soggy gloom by simply embracing its inevitability. With his new album More Rain, Ward has made a true gotta-stay-indoors, rainy-season record that looks upwards through the weather while reflecting on his past. “I think one of the biggest mysteries of America right now is this: How are we able to process unending bad news on Page One and then go about our lives the way the Style section portrays us?” says Ward. “There must be a place in our brains that allows us to take a bird’s-eye view of humanity, and I think music is good at helping people-myself included-go to that place.” This album finds Ward picking up the tempo and volume a bit from his previous release, 2012’s A Wasteland Companion. Where that record introspectively looked in from the outside, More Rain finds Ward on the inside, gazing out. Begun four years ago and imagined initially as a DIY doo-wop album that would feature Ward experimenting with layering his own voice, it soon branched out in different directions, a move that he credits largely to his collaborators here who include R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Neko Case, k.d. lang, The Secret Sisters, and Joey Spampinato of NRBQ. The result is a collection of upbeat, sonically ambitious yet canonically familiar songs that both propel Ward’s reach and satisfy longtime fans.