M. Ward - For Beginners: The Best of M. Ward - VINYL LP

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 InchCry,Inch For Beginners is both a primer and a mixtape of favorites sequenced in a way that gives them new life. Beginning with InchChinese TranslationInch and InchPoison CupInch 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 InchLet's Dance,Inch from 2003's Transfiguration of Vincent, breaks out into the exuberant InchNever Had Nobody Like YouInch 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 during Merge Records' 35-year anniversary, this celebration of one of the tag's most beloved artists includes InchCryInch-his first new recording on Merge since 2018-a stripped-down cover of the Godley & Creme pop classic featuring Melbourne, Australia's Folk B*tch Trio. M. Ward on InchCryInch InchCryInch 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 B*tch Trio; we rehearsed and recorded InchCryInch 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