Yesterday, I spoke about The Golden Republic, a band from Kansas City that would eventually spawn The Republic Tigers, and Soft Reeds.

Soft Reeds is the new project from Ben Grimes, former lead singer/songwriter for The Golden Republic.  After the break-up of The Golden Republic, Ben would move to Nashville, ready to move on with life and put music aside.

A year later, Nashville had pulled the music out of Ben again, and he soon began writing and recording under the name Soft Reeds.

The music of Soft Reeds is a natural progression out of The Golden Republic’s sound. Where Kenn Jankowski’s Republic Tigers opt for ambience and reverb, Ben’s Soft Reeds project focuses on more standard songwriting and attitude.

You can download Three Songs by Soft Reeds on Bandcamp for free.

The EP features the song “Buildings and Mountains” which was co-written by Grimes and Jankowski for The Golden Republic.  The song eventually became the first single from The Republic Tigers Keep Color album.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I really enjoy listening to Ben’s work both in The Golden Republic and in Soft Reeds, because my mind just doesn’t work that way musically.  It always keeps me on my toes as a listener.

A prime example of this is in the song “This Affair.”  Listen to the section after the verses where the music suddenly breaks down to organ and vocals.  I would never make a songwriting decision like this, because I don’t have the ability to make something like that work.  Ben makes it work, and it’s great.

Follow Soft Reeds on Twitter for great tid-bits of knowledge like:

- how come people who drive racecars aren’t called car racists?

- any man that thinks waxing his eyebrows is a good idea deserves to look that ridiculous.