this is about matt ward. or m. ward. or m ward. my itunes lists all of those guises, but i guess the names’ll change but the constellations will still tumble and he’ll still have a soft gravelly voice and a steady insistent way of strumming a guitar.
when he was working with howie gelb at giant sands (lo-fi indie name drop coming up, more of a name tumble i guess) matt and i emailed a little. he was posting his cds out from his house and you had to send him cash to buy them. i doubted the mailman wouldn’t take my ten dollars out of the envelope and go and buy 5 cheesy gourdita crunches at taco bell.
but he didn’t and i got a cd back.
but that was 2002. and now he’s signed to beggar’s offshoot and xl sister label matador and laterly 4ad and he’s doing great.
this song here is something i’ve had for a long time. you’ll know it. i don’t need to say much anything about it except that if you’re going to cover a well known song then you need to take it somewhere else, which is just what he does.
in fact maybe he takes it to bed. not in a seedy, throw you on a grubby mattress and hammer it out for five minutes and one second way
he lays the track down on a feather eiderdown and longs it into submission, he coaxes the romance and magic out of bowie’s flashy nile rodgers co-produced vapid yet funky yuppie post-disco electro stomp in a way that makes me wonder if they’re the same song afterall. i wanted to post more of his stuff but even chosing a couple of tracks is a bit too much of a challenge. plus i’m basking in the afterglow of listening to this over and over while i wrote.
m. ward – let’s dance