Aside from his duo work with Zooey Deschanel in She & Him, it’s been a spell since we’ve heard new solo music from M. Ward, but all that will change in the spring: Ward announced this morning that the follow-up to 2009’s Hold Time will arrive on April 10th, via Merge Records. Titled A Wasteland Companion, the 12-track LP features a host of guest performances by the Portland singer-songwriter’s talented friends, including his latest musical partner, Deschanel, John Parish, longtime collaborator/Monsters of Folk bandmate Mike Mogis, Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, and recent tourmate Howe Gelb.
Back in May, Ward said that he was planning to finish writing a “giant backlog of songs” in his hometown for the forthcoming collection. Check out song titles for the dozen tunes that made the cut with studio LP7’s official tracklist below:
A Wasteland Companion
01. “Clean Slate (For Alex & El Goodo)”
02. “Primitive Girl”
03. “Me and My Shadow”
04. “Sweetheart”
05. “I Get Ideas”
06. “The First Time I Ran Away”
07. “A Wasteland Companion”
08. “Watch the Show”
09. “There’s a Key”
10. “Crawl After You”
11. “Wild Goose”
12. “Pure Joy”