M. Ward Hold Time

[TIME TRAVEL] Balancing artistic ambition with commercial aims can be difficult. Not long ago, M. Ward was just another underappreciated, modest-selling troubadour singing about losing his love in the Portland rain. And then Zooey Deschanel happened.

Last year Ward helped the actress hem the arrangements for a cute, throwback set of ’60s pop and folk songs under the name She & Him. Almost instantly, Ward was transformed from that dude whose record you bought on a whim at Everyday Music in 2002 to that dude in the pages of People magazine. The subtle change in stature is heard on his new album, Hold Time, which attempts to fuse Ward’s love of old folk, blues and road music with a modern junk-shop sheen.

Hold Time is not a bad record by any means; in fact, a few tunes—the lovely and inviting opener “For Beginners,” and the somber title track among them—are some of the best Ward has ever recorded. But I like my pop songs a bit rough around the edges, and while Hold Time—recorded by friend and Bright Eyes cohort Mike Mogis—often does an able job of merging sound both expensive and cheap (“To Save Me,” for instance, features both a 12-piece string section and a schmaltzy pawnshop keyboard), the record has moments that are listless and a bit stale. “Never Had Nobody Like You” tries to replicate She Him’s success, but relegating Deschanel to backup vocals steals much of the song’s punch.

Ward seems to be grasping at universal concerns throughout the record, from Old Testament imagery (“For Beginners”) to Catholic guilt (the buzzing and super-catchy “Epistemology”) and throwback love letters like “Never Had Nobody Like You.” There has always been a timeless quality to his songs, but it’s tough to call a record great when the two things that really stick in your head—the glammed-up take on Sonny West’s “Rave On!” and a duet with country journeywoman Lucinda Williams on the Don Gibson standard “Oh Lonesome Me”—are covers. Ward is still coming into his own as a songwriter, but with Hold Time, it’s clear he often works best in the company of others.

Alela Diane To Be Still

[BRAMBLE-WEED FOLK] It’s easy to peg young folk singer Alela Diane as a wanderer. The 25-year-old Diane, born in Nevada City, Calif., moved to Portland in 2005, left two years later, and returned late last year. Still, after listening to Diane’s stunning To Be Still, it’s clear that her roots don’t exist in the city, country or even in this decade: Diane writes the type of rustic folk songs that transcend time, genre, and dusty old 45s.

While debut record The Pirate’s Gospel garnered Diane comparisons to her friend Joanna Newsom and the fledgling freak-folk genre, To Be Still is a more grounded record, fleshed out by moaning slide guitars, lightly brushed percussion, bits of mandolin and well-placed hand-claps. Country accents dot “Take Us Back” and “To Be Still” which, with libral use of slide guitar and a shuffling, light-as-dust backbeat, recall Iron Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days without jumping the shark. “My Brambles” even features that dreaded hippie signpost—the bongo drum—without distracting from the rousing fiddle-led arrangement and lyrics about darkness falling upon the canyon. If the title didn’t give it away, To Be Still is a collection of songs about movement and place, and Diane is firmly comfortable on each track. The album is gorgeous and immaculately produced, her vocals placed up front and supported by organic arrangements that never obscure a note.

Diane’s voice is the album’s key: On “My Brambles,” she tiptoes atop a bed of stringed instruments, her tone rising like the early-morning sun. It comes to rest somewhere between Dusty Springfield and Vashti Bunyan—even cracking a bit during the fragile “Tatted Lace.” “No I won’t drag my fee-eee-eeet/ in whatever/ dirt you track in,” she sings on the title track. I won’t drag mine, either: To Be Still is the best record of 2009 thus far.