Ken Stringfellow Soft Commands (Yep Roc)
Posies co-founder, R.E.M. cohort and Big Star confederate Ken Stringfellow is deep into his second decade of creating sterling pop music. Soft Commands is his third solo release of intricately arranged, intimate songs that mine Bacharach, Bread, the Beach Boys and at least one Beatle (McCartney, of course). Written and recorded all over the world, from Seattle to Senegal, the album unfolds like a travelogue, with spartan piano ballads in between mini-symphonies with a few surprise stops along the way, like Stringfellow’s baroque mandolin on “Any Love,” the brisk electronic rhythm underneath “For Your Sake” and the blue-eyed soul-steeped “Let Me Do.” Occasionally, the multi-instrumentalist gets a bit precious (the Doors-y darkness of “Je Vous En Prie,” the dub experiment of “Dawn of the Dub of the Dawn” and the boy’s choir and reggae verses of “You Become the Dawn”), but Stringfellow’s clear, composed croon forgives all sins.