She & Him

She & Him's "Volume One" (Merge Records) is a winsome, wonderful and cheerful-sounding pop record. So it's disconcerting to see the project's first video, for "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?," in which singer/actress Zooey Deschanel meets her demise in various strange and cartoonish ways.

"I'd love to take credit, but that actually came from the mind of Ace Norton, the director," Deschanel said in a recent phone chat. "I remembered this old Carpenters video, which had her sitting in the 'O' of a big Y-O-U and singing while wearing this funny '70s dress that looked kind of awkward. It was really endearing, which I liked. I showed that to Ace and he said, 'What if you fell off and died?' Um...okay. But we just decided to let him do whatever he wanted and have artistic freedom. So he did this cool, crazy video."

For more on Deschanel's dual music/movie career (which includes a role in the upcoming "Yes Man," but not much sleep), see the interview in Friday's paper. And while I'm at it, below is a 2005 interview with Deschanel's She & Him collaborator, M. Ward.

M. Ward tunes in to a time, a feeling
By David Menconi, News & Observer
April 1, 2005

M. Ward's fourth album, "Transistor Radio" (Merge Records), is best heard after dark. Quietly mesmerizing and hard to classify, the music is an idiosyncratic combination of folk, blues, country and jazz. It sounds not of this time, like what critic Greil Marcus once dubbed "the old, weird America" -- perfect late-night comfort food for the brokenhearted. Or soundtrack music for a particularly strange and subdued Halloween party.

Ward (whose first-name initial stands for Matt) played guitar with Bright Eyes on last fall's "Vote For Change" tour, and his album includes cameos from Vic Chesnutt and members of My Morning Jacket, Rilo Kiley and Decemberists. But "Transistor Radio" sounds nothing like any of those reference points.

Ward strums spare melodies on guitar and sings in a bluesy, murmuring yowl that sounds decades older than his 31 years. It's a disembodied voice that's hard to pin down as to point of origin, as though it's not of this world. Many of the lyrics invoke a state of limbo, sung in a voice that also seeks to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.

"It's kinda what came out when I started singing, and also what's been evolving," Ward says of his singing voice, calling from San Francisco on a tour that brings him to the Triangle on Thursday. "My vocal style is still evolving in the same way my guitar style is evolving. Vocal and guitar styles are the same to me. I soak in influences and then something comes out, but I'm not sure why or how. They all come out in this weird blend I can't understand. Like Louis Armstrong -- I've spent a long time listening to his music because those records were lying around the house when I was really young."

Armstrong, the New Orleans jazz legend, is one of the most important figures in Ward's musical vocabulary and an obvious vocal influence. Ward pays tribute to some of those influences on "Transistor Radio" with four covers. Two serve as bookends that open and close the album -- an instrumental version of the Beach Boys' "You Still Believe in Me," from 1966's "Pet Sounds"; and a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier," from the 18th century. In between, Ward covers Armstrong's "Sweethearts on Parade" and the Carter Family's proto-country ballad "Oh Take Me Back."

But Ward's covers are so distinctive that they don't stick out from his originals, which ask questions along the lines of, "Why burn your bridges when you can blow your bridges up?" "Four Hours in Washington" perfectly captures the feeling of late-night insomnia when you have to get up early in the morning, and "Radio Campaign" pleads, "Come back, my little peace of mind."

At one point, Ward declares (on "I'll Be Yr Bird"), "I'm not your deejay on late-night radio." But "Transistor Radio" really does sound like spinning a radio dial 'round midnight, and hearing voices and songs from a great distance away. Ward's childhood memories of late-night listening sessions with a transistor radio provided the inspiration.

"Before I even knew what radio was, I had a very cheap radio, and listening to it had this magical quality because I didn't understand it," Ward says. "My favorite radio memories don't take place in a certain time or space or sound like they're coming from a certain era or town, if that makes any sense. The way radio was in my memory, it could take you places the same way dreams could, with unexpected emotions and results. Part of the idea for this record was to go back to that time when radio was larger than life in my mind, more magical and mysterious.

"So," he concludes, "I collected a lot of songs I'd written over the years about radio, put those four covers on there to get that atmosphere, and recorded it. The way I make records, you just tie together songs that sound like they need to be tied up anyway, then you go with that."

For all that calculation, however, the most important element of Ward's songwriting is still unconscious instinct. More often than not, he'll sit down to write one song and another will take over.

"I think when you're not thinking specifically about what you're writing about, that's when interesting things come out," Ward says. "You can measure your thoughts in a certain way by going back through old four-track tapes, and learn a little about where your heart is at. Your creative mind is gravitating toward a subject for one reason or another. It's sort of self-psychology, certain subjects you're drawn to without even thinking about it."