M Ward: A Wasteland Companion – review

(Bella Union)The riddle asks: if you replace the head of your broom, then replace the handle, have you still got the broom you started with? So it is with M Ward and his relationship to American music in that period between Elvis leaving the army and the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. Ward's music takes the shape of the declining years of rock'n'roll and of Brill Building pop, then removes its constituent parts and replaces them with newer versions: it's not a retooling, so much as a...

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