Carlos Forster (ft. M. Ward) – “Campfire Songs” + “I Walk I Talk”

She & Him/Monster of Folk’s M. Ward is turning his attention back toward his solo career with a new album in the works, his follow-up to 2009’s Hold Time, and a solo tour that kicked off last week in his adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon. “I’m going back to what it was when I first started, performing, writing and recording by myself,” he told HitFix of his plans to draft LP7 at home, adding later, “I have a giant backlog of songs that… I really haven’t had time to revisit or improve upon. It’s time to finish writing those songs.”

For an interview and 4-song set at Portland radio station 101.9’s Bing Lounge recently, Ward also offered an update on his duo with Zooey Deschanel: “She & Him have been doing some recording for some soundtracks. Stuff like that and little things, here and there. We’ll have another record one of these days.” Below, you can watch the rest of that Q&A alongside last week’s acoustic performances of “Poison Cup,” “Paul’s Song,” “Chinese Translation,” and “Sad, Sad Song.”

The Roots dropped an album cover, release date, and tracklist for their forthcoming record, How I Got Over, just two days ago, but one of the LP’s indie-guesting tracks has already hit the Web. Dubbed “Dear God 2.0,” Roots MC Black Thought rhymes over a moderately reworked version of Monsters of Folk’s “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.),” which features My Morning Jacket’s Jim James singing choruses about the mysteries of spiritual faith.

Though there’s no question that James — who originally penned the instant classic melody for his side project with Conor Oberst and M. Ward — and the Roots are a perfect, soulful match here, I was hoping for a more drastically different take on the tune. Either way, the Joanna Newsom-featuring track, “Right On,” and rumored Dirty Projectors cameos should throw a few welcome curveballs our way shortly.

Check out “Dear God 2.0” below, as well as the full HIGO tracklist:

Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, M. Ward, and Jim James may be busy attending to their other projects this spring/summer (Bright Eyes, She and Him, and My Morning Jacket, respectively), but the Monsters of Folk aren’t done spreading the word about their eponymous debut LP just yet. In addition to a contest-winning music video to their soulful single, “Dear God,” the trio have uploaded a new semi-animated video by Lauri Faggioni, who has directed similarly styled work for the likes of Devendra Banhart, Iron & Wine, and Bright Eyes in the past.

Sure, Yoko Ono with Sean Lennon and Mark Ronson on Fallon was interesting (we only lasted 30 seconds before flipping channels), Tegan and Sara’s “Hell” sounded pretty good on Conan, and Ghostface Killah’s slot on Kimmel was—as the Awl put it—”blessedly free of autotune,” but here are a few of our favorite late night musical performances from the week:

Pixies on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien - “Here Comes Your Man”

It’s no surprise that the Pixies, who just dropped a free live Doolittle EP, while on their Doolittle Tour, where they’re playing the entire Doolittle album, opted to play this classic track from Doolittle on Conan. Some songs are just so well-written that they kill every freakin’ time. Watch it here or below:

Sure, Bob Dylan is a big fan of Christmas nowadays and April Fool’s Day is clearly Trent Reznor’s favorite holiday, but Halloween has a unique way of bringing the festive spirit out of even the most straight-laced of musicians. Conor Oberst, in particular, likes to get dressed up for Halloween and play a couple covers (or as Phish would call them, “musical costumes”). Let’s take a look at a few of the gaunt indie rock heartthrob’s notable celebrations of All Hallows Eve, starting with this year:

Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, and M. Ward’s M. Ward have been singer/songwriter buddies for years, so it came as no surprise when details about a collaborative album came out. Those details, however, were few and all we had until today was a release date (Sept. 22) with a virtually barren official site.

Speaking to NME.com, the trio revealed that they are actually a quartet and that their forthcoming album will be, as we could’ve predicted, a stripped down affair. Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis is not only producing the record, as previously reported, but he also performs on the songs, making the lineup very similar to Bright Eyes’ critically acclaimed I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, which also featured James and Ward.

“The only rule we made was that we only wanted the four of us to play on it,” Oberst said of the sessions. “There were no extra hired guns, no drummers… we took turns playing drums and bass and experimenting.”

Click here to read how they are also playing up the whole “Monsters” thing by claiming the sessions at Shangri-La studios were haunted.