She & Him

She & Him fans fall into two types: (1) Those who know that M. Ward had a thriving solo career before hitting the Starbucks rack, and (2) those who don’t. Ward’s achingly beautiful acoustic ballads have floated around the outer rings of the music sphere since his 2001 release, End of Amnesia. Since the singer and songwriter hitched himself to Zooey Deschanel’s slow-burning twang with She & Him in 2008, Ward has become a household name. (He’s known, at least, as that guy who looks dark and mysterious next to Deschanel in photographs.) Musically speaking, Ward provides lush orchestration to his partner’s skirt-swinging, it-girl ditties. Both volumes of the duo’s work feature honeyed ballads and lilting, vintage tunes that fall just shy of schmaltz. Ward’s shimmering instrumentation imbues the results with a healthy dash of sass.