Keaton Henson
Keaton Henson will release his stunning second album, ‘Birthdays’, on February 25 - the follow-up to 2012’s critically acclaimed ‘Dear...’. A new single, ‘Lying To You’, arrives the same day, in the wake of extensive support across Radio 1, XFM, 6Music and Radio 2.
Having suffered with extensive anxiety, Keaton has also announced a tentative return to touring - see a unique series of dates at museums nationwide, commencing in February.
All shows have already sold out, following 5-star reviews for Keaton’s Cinema Museum shows in October. He plays the Freud Museum on February 18 and 19 (which sold out in just two minutes).
At just 24 years old, Keaton Henson’s songs, artwork and poetry are known by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Yet he is a virtual stranger, whose anonymity is no accident.
Keaton has never posted on social networks, has not played live until very recently, and barely leaves his hometown or his bedroom. If you wanted him, you’d have had to find him, as many fans did, for instance, during ‘Gloaming’ - the celebrated exhibition of Keaton’s illustrative work, which saw him play one-on-one for each attendee within a dollhouse (a new exhibition runs this January).
But whilst he may be delicate, this is no wallflower: Keaton’s songs are as brutal as they are beautiful.
Keaton Henson’s debut album, ‘Dear...’, showed how lovelorn sounds can mix powerfully with rawness and rough emotion. Written and recorded in less than a year, ‘Birthdays’ goes even further.
Lead single ‘Lying To You’ may sound like a love song, but it reveals how painfully easy it is to be with someone you don't love. ‘Teach Me’ longs for someone to convince you to feel something for them, when in truth you feel nothing. And if ‘Dear...’ was beset by heartbreak, ‘Birthdays’ presents a character whose desire for intimacy is haunted by an occasional urge for self-destruction.
‘Best Today’ shows how you can fall for a stranger on the tube, and then forget them in a second. ‘Beekeeper’ warns you that this loneliness won't go away. And in the album’s heavy climax, ‘Kronos’ casts Keaton as a monster, who will 'take your soul, and eat you whole.'
In both its loud and quiet moments, ‘Birthdays’ is pierced through by Keaton’s unflinching lyrical honesty, which in part earned him his obsessive following on ‘Dear...’.
‘Birthdays’ sees Keaton Henson stepping outside of his comfort zone, both in tone, texture and also his hometown. American producer Joe Chiccarelli (The White Stripes, The Shins, The Strokes) said he wanted to work on the album, and this meant that Keaton had to travel to California, where he rented an apartment for two months. Keaton was terrified - not just by working with a producer: he hadn’t flown in seven years - but also felt he had to do this. Leaving the solitary boy’s leafy suburbs, Keaton Henson went to Hollywood.
It was whilst decamped in L.A. that Keaton met by chance (and eventually recorded with) several guests across the record. He set up a temporary cave in the studio, recreating his bedroom’s isolation, but allowed others into the fray this time. As such, ‘Birthdays’ features guest turns from members of Band of Horses (Tyler Ramsey), The Raveonettes (Sune Rose Wagner), Alberta Cross (Sam Kearney) and even an early member of Pearl Jam (Matt Chamberlain).
And whilst the record resonates deepest once Keaton is alone with his electric guitar, it is also brought to vivid life by French horns, co-vocalist Jesca Hoop and a ten-piece string section. Occasionally, as many musicians as possible joined in together: see the thunderous wall of guitars across ‘Kronos’, or the epic coda to ‘Don’t Swim’.
For Keaton, who has harboured a quiet love for hardcore music since he was a teenager, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Yet even in the famous Hollywood sunshine, he didn't once take off his tweed suit.
Slowly but surely, growing in confidence, Keaton Henson may just be stepping out of the shadows - not that he will ever be the kind of artist to bathe in the light. Yet his music gets to the heart of us. And on ‘Birthdays’, we start to get to the heart of him.