Tag: ken-stringfellow

‘Still on the verge’

Taylor

The Oregonian reviews Soft Commands.
For all his considerable gifts, Stringfellow’s big break has proved elusive.

“Soft Commands” sounds like the work of a man attempting to correct for this fundamental error in judgment. It’s Stringfellow’s first disc with properly large-sounding Singer-Songwriter Production, encompassing a dozen new songs written in locations around the world — New York, Stockholm, Paris (Stringfellow’s occasional home, after marrying French girlfriend Dominique Sassi) — and reflecting the restlessness that characterizes his tireless work ethic.

 

For all its sonic clarity, the boldness of the production doesn’t serve the songs well. For every “Cyclone Graves” (Stringfellow’s best song since the Posies’ 1993 “Frosting on the Beater” album), there’s also “Don’t Die,” a maudlin meditation on suicide set to a Squeeze-style backing track that fails to capture any of Stringfellow’s typical charm.

 

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Rolling Stone reviews Soft Commands

Taylor

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.

GEAR HUNT CONTINUES – Mirrored from KS.com

Taylor

I am looking pretty good, equipment wise (some say this hawaiian shirt i have on *also* looks good) –still coming up short for keys (see other posts for what i’m looking for) in Chapel Hill and Cleveland (see tour dates). For all the other folks that have come thru, I humbly thank you! Ohioans, I needs you!

KS

ile de re FRANCE

Ken on the SXSW performance

Taylor

“This is the show where I debuted much of the Soft Commands material. It was an emotional night. This year at SXSW, I was doing it all hours, full speed,” Ken says.

“The Posies played electric and acoustic sets, Big Star performed and I played several solo sets plus accompanied Robyn Hitchcock (twice) and John Roderick from the Long Winters.

“I was influenced by my fatigue and by wherever I was in my life at that point. Anyway, somehow, when I played these songs, I had a lot to release, and many mysterious and deep sentiments were attached to the erformances, hopping on as stowaways, making it sometimes difficult to proceed without being overwhelmed, but all in all it was an intense set.”

from murmurs.com

The Anti-Hit List

Taylor

by John Sakamoto

eyeWeekly

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_06.24.04/music/ahl.html

9. KEN STRINGFELLOW, “Don’t Die”: Like the best of Stringfellow’s post-Posies output, this galloping anti-war statement has so much going on within its deceptively rigid pop-song structure, it takes three listens just to get your bearings. The militaristic rhythms are draped with swaths of orchestration, the lyrics rhyme da Vinci and Medici, and yet somehow it all comes together in the end. (From Soft Commands, www.kenstringfellow.com, out July 13)