Eight years in the making, Ken Stringfellow's fourth solo album is an expansive take on multiple forms of balladry. There's twinkling chamber pop, rootsy twang, gentle piano-led crooning, blue-eyed soul, proggy psych, cavernous minimalism, Beatleyness, and a Posies-style strummer to wrap it up. Having decamped to France from his native western Washington over a decade ago, Stringfellow recorded in Holland, with an array of Dutch musicians at his disposal (and a few Americans, in particular Charity Rose Theilen of The Head and the Heart). Posies co-frontman, R.E.M. touring sideman, Big Star reunion stand-in, Norwegian garage-band rocker, Australian power-pop band singer, the busy Stringfellow is notoriously weird (his 2nd solo album is titled Touched for a reason), but his music is not, even when he's broadening his palette; he is a skilled tunesmith and showman.
Fun fact: the album's title, Danzig in the Moonlight, is a pun. More than just a reference to the founding singer of the Misfits (if at all), Danzig is, or was, a city in Poland on the Baltic Sea.
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When I was assembling my list of the Top 40 Albums of 2012, I omitted this one, because I couldn't find any of the good songs online. Anywhere. And then I forgot my Soundcloud login. So I gave up and dropped the album altogether from the list, because I'm impulsive and was tired.
But now I'm going to see Ken Stringfellow at Schubas on Sat. Feb 9th, so in an effort to redeem myself a bit, not that I need to, here's some love for that kooky expatriate, Ken.
I posted my 3 favorite tracks from the album via my Soundcloud page, but someone, either Ken or his label I presume, cited a copyright infringement and the tracks were removed. That's their right, but it's also cutting off their nose to spite their face. They were not downloadable.
Pray
