|
Posted: 04/04/07
M. Ward
Transistor Radio , 2005, Merge
Mike Morris| managing editor
mmorris2@smcvt.edu
tran·sis·tor ra·di·o, noun. A portable radio using circuits containing transistors rather than vacuum tubes. Typically monaural and receive only the 540–1600 kilocycle AM band.
M. Ward’s Transistor Radio is an aptly-titled album, a 16 track, 43 minute spin through music as diverse as what one might encounter along the entire AM band.
I picture listening to this album in an old convertible (with only AM radio) on a cross country trip, Midwestern leg. Songs like “Fuel for Fire” and “Paul’s Song” manage to find beauty in sparseness in a way that can be seen as a metaphor for the large mid-section of America so often overlooked. Each song passes like a new station fading in and out with the landscape.
The songs on Transistor Radio are short, clocking in between two and three minutes, like the songs of yore being emulated here. There’s a prevalent fuzziness underneath several songs, the static of the titular can’t-quite-be-tuned radio.
Ward opens the album with a California-sound cover of the Beach Boys’ “You Still Believe In Me,” though he plays it as a heavily speeded up instrumental, the kind of thing a DJ would have talked over, before cueing up “One Life Away” the second track, which sounds like it was recorded around an old-time single microphone. Call this the Ohio part of the trip.
The next track of note is “Hi-Fi,” a song with production values befitting of its name. Ward’s indie folk rock sounds a bit more polished, until the atonal guitar outro. Even Ward’s gruff, gravelly tenor sounds less raw, though still original and comforting. At this point, we’re in Chicago.
Next is the back porch crooner, “Fuel for Fire,” one of the best tracks on the album. This one doesn’t just sound retro, it is retro. Ward name-drops 45s and books for the weekend. By now we’re somewhere in Iowa or Wisconsin—farm country.
“Four Hours in Washington ” feels urgent, driven by a bass drum hit. This is the song to hit the road over night to.
It’s three in the morning, better get some sleep in soon,
I’m gonna count the numbers in the counselor’s room.
And if I miss a beat, well, then it’s off with my head.
Now it’s four in the morning and I’m twisting in my bed.
This pulsing, road-pounding feel is shared by the manic instrumental “Regeneration No. 1.” This track spirals out of control, a twisting road down a mountain with no guardrail, a car with busted breaks and a drunk driver. But at the end—success.
Skip a track (not that you should, this is for spatial reasons) and you’ll hit “Paul’s Song,” another one of the best tracks on the album. Ward assumes the personality of a traveler here, letting his guitar lines meander through the Great Plains.
The lyrics are comforting despite their apocalyptic (or maybe just depressing) nature, revealing an insider’s secret.
Seems like everywhere I go the sky is falling
and the concierges they meet you with a frown.
When I come to town,
I ain't gonna' lie to you.
Well, every town is all the same
Despite this assertion, Ward sings like he doesn’t quite believe himself, hopping trains and planes across the country to prove himself wrong.
Next is my favorite track on the album: “Radio Campaign.” It’s another straightforward indie folk track with a brilliant bit of radio static thrown in between the verses, under the lyrics
I sent signals and signs,
from a mountainside.
Now I’m gonna try this old microphone light.
Now I’m calling out your name on this radio campaign.
Come back, come back
my little peace of mind.
Come back, come back
my little peace of mind.
Since the day you've been gone
I cannot keep from crying.
With a female singer joining him for harmonies on the last lines, this section stands out as particularly brilliant.
Optimism follows, cutting the dire ending of “Radio Campaign” short on “Here Comes the Sun Again.” The end is in sight, I’d say western Nebraska or the Dakotas by now.
And the leaves on the trees they all call out your name,
chrome on the freight line shines the same,
and the stars in their cars roll their tops down for you, singing
'Here comes the sun again.'
The album continues on, leaving the Midwest and moving south, maybe hitting New Orleans or the Mississippi Delta on “Oh Take Me Back,” and the sleepy waterside Savannah or Charleston on “I’ll Be Yr Bird” and “Lullaby + Exile;” soft songs buoyed by Ward’s easy-going guitar, beautiful voice and even a little bit of whistling. If a lazy summer afternoon had a soundtrack, these would both appear twice. Ward’s music is of the sort that can be played in any company, any time, and manage to be appropriate (in a way that doesn’t involve selling out or being horribly mainstream).
He wraps it all up with another instrumental, classical this time—J.S. Bach’s “Well-tempered Clavier.” This one is set in a dream, anywhere in the country. A dream in black and white. Something like The Wizard of Oz, at the end, and without the intervening terror. Or in Citizen Kane, when little Charles Foster is playing in the snow, unaware of his future being planned inside. Ward encapsulates that unbounded joy with Bach’s lines, closing on a high note.
To reflect on this well-traveled album, we turn back to the above-mentioned “Paul’s Song.”
How does it feel to be traveling?
How does it feel to live your life on the train?
With a copy of Transistor Radio it feels pretty nice.
|
