M. Ward's third solo record, The Transfiguration of Vincent, due March 18th on Merge, features the singer-songwriter's trademark sleepy rasp and nimble acoustic fretwork on fifteen songs loosely united by a single event: the late John Fahey's memorial service in Oregon. "I have a lot of questions about that relationship between love and death," Ward, former frontman for Rodriguez, says. "[At the service], this guy played a harmonica song written by Fahey. I had never really experienced music to have that particular power, of bringing somebody who had passed back in such a real way."

Ward's affinity for the single mike recordings of old blues singers like Robert Johnson comes across clearly on The Transfiguration. "I have this theory that whatever you're consuming, whether it be artistic or otherwise, eventually finds a way of coming out," he says. "I'm more interested in the quality of music of the early part of the last century, and I'm interested in how those sentiments can be just as important as the things that maybe Radiohead are talking about."

That open-minded approach to the studio is typified by "Outta My Head." "There's a bunch of unintended things on that song, he says. "It starts with a radio bit that was supposed to be at the end of another song, but it works at the beginning of that one. The keyboard becomes distorted by accident at the very end and it seemed to tell me that's when to fade out the song."

The upcoming album also finds Ward peeling back the Eighties embellishments from David Bowie's "Let's Dance" to reveal some of the Thin White Duke's better lyrics, casting what seemed a throwaway tune in a new, indispensable light.

"I think it's my favorite love song from him from that whole era," Ward says. "I'm pretty sure he wrote it about the threat of war. It seemed perfect to put that song on the record, too, because he's talking about a lot of the questions I have -- like the sentiment of turning to some sort of dance to escape decay or the passing of time."

COLIN DEVENISH
(March 12, 2003)