For Beginners: The Best of M. Ward (New 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 “”Cry,”” For Beginners is both a primer and a mixtape of favorites sequenced in a way that gives them new life. Beginning with “”Chinese Translation”” and “”Poison Cup”” 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 “”Let’s Dance,”” from 2003’s Transfiguration of Vincent, breaks out into the exuberant “”Never Had Nobody Like You”” 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 release during Merge Records’ 35-year anniversary, this celebration of one of the label’s most beloved artists includes “”Cry””-his first new recording on Merge since 2018-a stripped-down cover of the Godley & Creme pop classic featuring Melbourne, Australia’s Folk Bitch Trio. M. Ward on “”Cry””:””Cry”” 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 Bitch Trio; we rehearsed and recorded “”Cry”” 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 sparse recordings, his knack for collaboration, and his ability to see through to the soul of a meticulously crafted pop song-as much a means of looking forward to what’s to come of his own work as it is a callback to his past.