M. WARD – FOR BEGINNERS: THE BEST OF M. WARD Vinyl LP Hot on Sale

For Beginners: The Best of M. Ward is a collection for M. Ward fans of any vintage. Gathering together 14 tracks from across his Merge Records discography, including the newly recorded song Cry, For Beginners is both a primer and a mixtape of favorites sequenced in a way that gives them new life. Beginning with Chinese Translation and Poison Cup from 2006 s Post-War, For Beginners drops in on Ward as he expands his prowess in the studio. His singular cover of David Bowie s Let s Dance, from 2003 s Transfiguration of Vincent, breaks out into the exuberant Never Had Nobody Like You from 2009 s Hold Time. Rather than the neat evolutionary line suggested by a chronological arrangement, what holds For Beginners together is Ward s impeccable skill as a songwriter, which remains in focus as his sound expands from low-fi home recordings to electric, radio-ready stompers. Serendipitously timed for release during Merge Records 35-year anniversary, this celebration of one of the label s most beloved artists includes Cry -his first new recording on Merge since 2018-a stripped-down cover of the Godley & Creme pop classic featuring Melbourne, Australia s Folk Bitch Trio. M. Ward on Cry : Cry was recorded in a Tasmanian modern art museum called MONA. I sat at the end of a long hallway a few feet away from Anselm Kiefer s sculpture of a 20-foot-high stack of lead books, and standing to my left and right around a single microphone were Melbourne s Folk Bitch Trio; we rehearsed and recorded Cry in about 30 minutes. A pleasure to add this song to a collection of some of my favorite memories of music-making during the first decade of record-creating with my friends at Merge. The song is the perfect capstone for a collection of this nature, summing up much of Ward s power as a musician: the richness he s capable of achieving in sparse recordings, his knack for collaboration, and his ability to see through to the soul of a meticulously crafted pop song-as much a means of looking forward to what s to come of his own work as it is a callback to his past.