Migration stories

“It was in winter 18/19 - I flew to Montreal to meet with Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry, Craig Silvey and Teddy
Impakt at Le Studio Du Arcade Fire. It was a fine time with a dream team in a city I love. Winter in beautiful Quebec.
Les semaines les plus froides de ma vie.

I had a bunch of demos that were inspired by migration stories I had heard from friends or read in newspapers while
on tour in Europe and North America. I remember being struck by the similarities of the stories I heard from both
continents and how really only the names of the powerful and the powerless had changed - thinking, “Is this the
future? Is this our future?”

Some time went by, the stories wove together and I remember them now closer to characters in a dream of how people
could treat each other than any kind of front-page news realism. I think music subconsciously - whether writing or
listening - is a filter for me - helping to process all the bad news into something new to build from - some records
to me are like self-fulfilling prophecies - visualizing change to wish something into being - those records inspired this one.”
- M. Ward winter 19/20