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A Wasteland Companion is the sixth solo studio album from indie-folk legend M. Ward. The 12-track album was made with 18 musicians and recorded in eight different studios in Portland, Omaha, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin and Bristol (UK). The multitude of musicians appearing on A Wasteland Companion includes: Mike Coykendall (percussion, bass), Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb (piano), John Parish (percussion, marimba), Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis (organ), Susan Sanchez (vocals), She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel (vocals), Jordan Hudson (percussion), Adam Selzer (bass), Nathan “JR” Andersen (piano), Scott McPherson (percussion), Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley (percussion), Dr Dog’s Tobey Leaman (bass), Devotchka’s Tom Hagerman (strings), Oakely Hall’s Rachel Cox (vocals), Amanda Lawrence (violin), John Graboff (pedal steel) and Tyler Tornfelt (bass). The recording utilized eight engineers, including Tom Schick (Rufus Wainwright) and John Parish (PJ Harvey).
BBC Review

Endless grafter and Americana chieftain Matthew Ward specialises in the kind of knowing multi-collaborative musicianship that prodigious US alt-sters pull off with such swagger. He’s worked with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst on the misleadingly named Monsters of Folk, one of the least-beastly supergroups to ever exist. He drafted in actress and indie pin-up Zooey Deschanel for twee-tinged duo She & Him.

So it appears time for solo songwriting comes whenever his creative juices start trickling. A Wasteland Companion is a scattered body of random missives and musings – one envisages it began as some tattered cigarette papers decorated with inner monologue laid down in chicken scratch. The preceding work, his sixth album Hold Time, is more synergic, but Ward has always written some songs that prompt a pinging internal light bulb and others that seem unremarkable.

This album is wildly diverse, the product .......
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