M. Ward releasing Billie Holiday covers LP benefitting BLM (stream a track)

M. Ward will release Think of Spring on December 11 via ANTI-. It’s a covers album of songs originally recorded by Billie Holiday. “I first heard [Billie’s album] Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco,” M. Ward says. “I was about 20 years old and didn’t know much about Billie’s records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar — some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life.” Proceeds from the album will benefit Inner-City Arts & DonorsChoose via PLUS1 for Black Lives Fund. You can pre-order it now.

Most of the album was recorded on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder with just M. Ward and his acoustic guitar, using a variety of alternate tunings. The first single from the album is “For Heaven’s Sake.” “It still feels good to invent new guitar tunings and use them to help deconstruct old songs,” M. Ward said, with this one using a modified open B tuning. You can listen to that, and check out the artwork and tracklist for the album, below.

M. WARD ‘Think of Spring’ tracklist:
1. I Get Along Without You Very Well
2. For Heaven’s Sake
3. It’s Easy To Remember
4. You’ve Changed
5. Violets For Your Furs
6. For All We Know
7. But Beautiful
8. All The Way
9. I’m A Fool To Want You
10. I’ll Be Around
11. You Don’t Know What Love Is