M. Ward Announces New Album 'More Rain,' Shares First Single [LISTEN]

M. Ward has announced that his new album, entitled More Rain, is scheduled to drop on March 4th via Merge records. The 12-track album will feature collaborations with Peter Buck of R.E.M., K.D. Lang, Neko Case, The Secret Sisters and NRBQ's Joey Spampinato. With the announcement, the long-term fixture of the Portland alternative indie folk scene shared the first single, "Girl From Conejo Valley."

According to a press release, when Ward started to work on More Rain he envisioned a doo-wop album. What came out four years later instead promises to be a "true gotta-stay-indoors, rainy-season record that looks upwards through the weather while reflecting on his past," reports Consequence of Sound.

As the title suggests, the album is as much an ode to the artist's rainy Pacific Northwest home as it is a reference to the bad news that permeates all of our lives. "I think one of the biggest mysteries of America right now is this: How are we able to process unending bad news on Page One and then go about our lives the way the Style section portrays us? There must be a place in our brains that allows us to take a bird's-eye view of humanity, and I think music is good at helping people--myself included--go to that place," Ward explained in a statement.

The forthcoming release follows three years behind 2012's A Wasteland Companion and will be the artist's ninth full-length studio solo album. In recent years the musician has also been busy as one-half of the duo She & Him with Zooey Deschanel; he is also a part of Monsters of Folk, though they haven't been active recently.

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M. Ward, Jenny Lewis, Peter Buck, Neko Case