Credit: Danielle Fricke
Today, enigmatic polymath Keaton Henson has shared details of his highly anticipated new album Parader. Out 21st November via Play It Again Sam, the announcement comes alongside the release of a sardonic new single titled “Insomina”.
Parader marks Henson’s ninth studio album and his first since 2024’s Somnambulant Cycles. It also follows his recent return single “Lazy Magician” (co-written by Ratboys’ Julia Steiner), which was released in July, earning support from the likes of Rolling Stone UK, Crack, The Line Of Best Fit, The New Cue, Stereogum, Under The Radar, and GoldFlakePaint, who said it’ hinted “at a bold new chapter on the horizon; a restless and romantic re-defining.”
Whereas that last single nodded to Henson beginning to shed the “quiet boy” persona that has defined much of his career – if we’re to omit his myriad efforts composing for film and theatre, an electronic side project, his classical offerings, his illustration and writing work – the new album sees him fully embracing the grunge-infused sounds of his youth. Across the record, the elusive songwriter melds emotional darkness, melancholy, and simmering frustration as he reckons with the hauntings of his past. Lacing fuzzy distortion and surging guitars amongst the confessional vulnerability that has long been a hallmark of his offerings, Henson explains, “I was nervous about being too loud, but then it sort of just came out.”
Today’s new single “Insomnia” expands further on this new direction, entwining aching self-observation with a defiance Keaton terms “musical snark”. Rife with an American heft in its fuzz-laden instrumentation, echoes of his past are creeping into frame. As he sings, “the haunted 7-Eleven’s open all night,” Henson’s timeline is fragmenting, pulling him back more than a decade to the year he lived in California. “I’ll be singing about the fact that I can’t sleep from my bedroom in West Sussex, looking out over the fields, but then there’s a 7-Eleven in the middle of the field,” he explains, recalling insomnia-induced night walks around Los Angeles. The single is accompanied by a stunning animated stop motion video made by Henson himself which reflects the frustration and surrealism that comes with those long nights.
WATCH / SHARE THE STOP MOTION VIDEO FOR “INSOMNIA” HERE
Single artwork
Those acquainted with Henson’s work will surely be familiar with his well-worn reputation as a softly spoken, introverted figure who rarely performs live – in a 15-year career he’s performed less than 40 times. Since emerging with his debut record Dear… in 2010, Henson has garnered critical acclaim for his mastery at weaving heart-on-sleeve vulnerability into emotionally poignant, folk-tinged outpourings. No stranger to anxiety’s heavy weight, he’s earned a devoted fan base from a self-imposed distance – shying from the spotlight to offer up the finite part of himself he’s willing to give away. “Sadness,” he once confessed, “is a feeling of which I have an excess of.”
What unravels across Parader’s 12 tracks is an introspective autopsy of time as it distorts and folds to alter and inhabit the songwriter’s present. “There are these disjointed snapshots,” he explains, “memories across time popping up amongst this collection of thoughts about what it feels like to be this age and a musician.”
These glimpses of Henson’s past, whether channelled in his lyrics or musically exposed in sneering riffs, might start to defy preconceptions of our reclusive balladeer. In a nod to his tender tone, Henson’s oft-met comparison to Elliott Smith, while The Independent once dubbed him the “British Jeff Buckley”, but, like the aforementioned pair, his early beginnings also took root in far heavier sounds. “Prior to being a folk thing I played in hardcore and emo bands,” he shares. It’s these snapshots of time that run amok on Parader, nostalgic distortions splintering the timeline’s once-linear path.
To piece Parader together, Henson collaborated with a wealth of talent who could harness these influences and bring them into the light. Production duties were split between Luke Sital-Singh, who Henson soon discovered “grew up in a similar area at a similar time, so our reference points were the same,” and Alex Farrar (Wednesday/Snail Mail): “the king of that very loud, American DIY sound.” The intimately tender “Furl” also found a first-time co-writer in his wife, Danielle Fricke, while Henson worked with Ratboys’ Julia Steiner on the earlier mentioned “Lazy Magician” A downtrodden duet that unfolds like a haunting daydream before winding guitars soar, Henson explains: “Julia’s voice is so evocative of that sound to me, it reminds me of when I first heard Rilo Kiley. She has a lot of the suburban magic-realism of the American bands I loved back then.”
From early days in London and his career as a visual artist – illustrating for the likes of Enter Shikari, Dananananaykroyd, and Oli Sykes’ Drop Dead – to the overwhelm of musical renown and his retreat from LA, to the here and now; 37 years old, married, chopping wood in the quietude of his countryside home, there is a wealth of life experience for Henson to draw from. Yet in this moment, he comes somewhat full circle with apparitions of a young Keaton loitering outside the local skate shop, a teenager catching American hardcore acts in the suburbs of South London. “It’s definitely pulling from the things I listened to when I was a young, but they’re being spat out through the lens of me and my career now. It’s a weird ‘me’ version of that stuff musically.”
Under the weight of this poignant introspection, it’s hard to ignore that Henson’s ruminations also harbor traces of earned experience. Of the aching exasperation recurring throughout Parader, Henson notes, “there’s a lot of frustration in the record at not having conquered life.” And yet, it is this honesty, earnestly dispatched through heartwrenching outpourings, that make the record feel quintessentially Keaton Henson. However, Parader has legitimate confidence. “It’s not me pretending to be anything I’m not,” Henson explains. “It’s maybe just me accepting that part of me is this. It’s louder and it has those bigger, louder, rasher sounds, but not from a performative point of view. Maybe I’m accepting that that is a part of me as well.”
As the record closes out, final track “Performer” brings us full circle to the question of the album’s title – the two intrinsically linked. As he sings, “I’ll show my scars to you no matter who you are,” Henson acknowledges the emotional pains of being a musician in the public eye, with the relentless march of time a grudging ally in delivering his stories: “I am the parader. The person who parades around showing their wounds for a living.”
PARADER IS OUT 21ST NOVEMBER VIA PLAY IT AGAIN SAM – PRE-ORDER HERE
Album artwork
Tracklisting:
1) Don’t I Just
2) Insomnia
3) Lazy Magician (ft. Julia Steiner)
4) Past It
5) Conversation Coach
6) Furl (ft. Danielle Fricke)
7) Loose Ends
8) Operator
9) Tell Me So
10) Tourniquet
11) Day In New York
12) Performer
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