After the early patronage of Howe Gelb, Oregon’s Matt Ward dished up 2001’s End Of Amnesia, one of the most breathtaking albums of recent years. Transfiguration…is another masterclass in deft guitar picking, smudged with piano, harmonica and a voice like honey drizzled onto a dry creekbed. The behind-a-screen-door quality of production adds to the strangeness, while the likes of “Undertaker” often stop, start, scuff around then veer off at a tangent. Somewhere between a Gelb bothering to finish off songs and The Band at their most bucolic. And look out for the unlikeliest version of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” you’ll ever hear.