Are you watching Lost?  I’ve just come back to it after a couple of seasons and I’m totally engrossed in the current storyline—which has the castaways and audience jumping around in time, piecing the story together backwards and forwards, from past to future, to present, and then back to the future again.  In all of this time jumping, the island landscape pretty much remains unchanged, which makes it hard for those who are experiencing these temporal shifts to get a handle on just exactly “when” they are.

(photo: Autumn de Wilde)

In a strange way, the island on Lost reminds me a lot of an  M. Ward album. They are both surrounded with an aura of mystique and magical charm that renders some listeners/visitors inert–once you’re there, you don’t really want to leave.  I won’t resort to the cliché of calling his music timeless, but it’s true that his music is not easily identified as being of a particular time and place.  M. Ward is also not an easy guy to pin down (and last week we found out neither is the island).  He’s shifted positions  in the musical universe lately, as one half of She & Him with Zooey Deschanel,  then as a solo artist again.  Last week saw the release of his latest solo album, Hold Time, another breezy collection of songs paying tribute to old records and recording techniques.  I’ve heard the album described as meta-music: music about music, and that’s as pretty accurate a description as I can think of.  With covers of Buddy Holly and Din Gibson providing a physical connection to the past, Ward allows his songs to slide along temporal continuums, bringing the security of the past forward to help us face the uncertainties of the future.  It’s come none too soon, given the instability our modern times have been saddled with lately.  Most importantly, Hold Time has allowed music to take a breather from the breakneck speed of technology and optimization, and just do what it is best at: soothing the soul.

MP3: M. Ward “Never Had Nobody Like You (featuring Zooey Deschanel)”
Facebook: M. Ward
Myspace: M. Ward
Buy: M. Ward Hold Time