M. Ward has unveiled the video for his current single “Unreal City.” Directed by Beatrice Pegard and starring actress Clémence Poésy, the video is filmed in Paris and comes ahead of the April 3rd release of highly anticipated new album Migration Stories (Anti Records). Pegard adds, “The video is about finding joy and wonder in the most random moments and places, paying homage to Jean-Luc Godard and the New Wave.
Another track from the album, “Torch,” is out now.
HEAR NEW TRACK ‘TORCH’ ON SPOTIFY, YOUTUBE, SOUNDCLOUD
October 2020 UK Tour:
Tues 27th – Caves, Edinburgh – TICKETS
Weds 28th – District, Liverpool – TICKETS
Thurs 29th – Islington Assembly Hall, London – TICKETS
For Migration Stories, his tenth studio album, Ward journeyed to Quebec, Canada to work with Arcade Fire’s Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry, producer/mixer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine) and Teddy Impakt. Together they recorded a collection of 11 songs inspired by stories of human migration. Languid, hazy and often dream-like in narrative, these songs have their origins in pictures from newspaper and television reports, stories told by friends and tales from Ward’s own family history. At Arcade Fire’s Montreal studios the assembled talents recorded what he describes as “11 largely instrumental ballads – a sci-fi fast forward to a more silent night many generations from here to a maybe-era where movement is free again.”
Migration Stories track listing:
1. Migration Of Souls 7. Real Silence
2. Heaven’s Nail and Hammer 8. Along the Santa Fe Trail #
3. Coyote Mary’s Traveling Show 9. Chamber Music
4. Independent Man 10. Torch
5. Stevens’ Snow Man 11. Rio Drone
6. Unreal City
# Written by Al Dubin, Hugh Williams
While he’s perhaps best known for his own remarkable output – nine acclaimed studio albums that have prompted Rolling Stone to hail him a “folk hero” and The Guardian to praise him as “a maverick auteur who draws upon blues, folk, country and art-rock, and is equally adept within each genre” – Ward may be equally celebrated for his wide-ranging and adventurous collaborations. In just the last decade alone he’s teamed up with Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and Jim James to form the beloved supergroup Monsters of Folk, paired with Zooey Deschanel for six records as She & Him and worked in the studio and on the road with the likes of Mavis Staples, Jenny Lewis, Norah Jones, Cat Power, Neko Case, Lucinda Williams, Peter Buck, and countless more.
