This Tuesday, 29th September, at 6pm London time Keaton Henson will be performing on French platform La Blogothèque’s Stay Away show series. The English musician will be following in the footsteps of bands like Honne and Whitney who have also played on the platform.
Keaton Henson debut album Dear came out in 2010. It was a collection of ten beautiful songs that he initially made with no intention of releasing them to the public. This makes sense considering the deeply intimate feel to the songs, which are rich with emotion.
Keaton’s voice is the type that comes directly from the soul, moving its listener entirely. You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are, the second track on his debut album, is an evocative tale of heartbreak addressed to a former girlfriend . Keaton shaking voice asks ‘Does he know not to talk// about your dad? Does he know when you are sad?… Does his love make your head spin?’.
These words, sung with delicacy and feeling and underpinned by simple guitar, caught the attention of Zane Lowe. Lowe played the piece on BBC Radio 1 saying: ‘This piece of music right here… is one of the most special pieces of music I’ve heard for a very long time’.
This exposure helped Henson gain the recognition he deserves, and since then he has been shortlisted for an MVA award and his songs have thousands of plays on Spotify. Despite this success, the London born singer suffers from chronic anxiety and has never been comfortable with live performance.
He told the Irish Times in 2019 that he ‘doesn’t like performing or anything that veers into that territory’, going on to speak about how even going to the shops to buy a pint of milk can be difficult for him. His most recent album, Six Lethargies, released in 2019 was a six track collection of movements for a string orchestra.
These ‘aimed to express and explain the feelings of anxiety and depression that he feels’, and this is certainly achieved. One would be hard pushed to listen to The Falling or Unease Concerto without feeling the pain in the strings that are played. This has always been Keaton’s biggest strength as a musician: to move his listeners through his music in the way that great artist like Bon Iver do.
His most recent single, Husk came out in September this year and though it had a more upbeat rhythm section, it still explored feelings of heartbreak and loss. This track was released in advance of his upcoming album, that is due for release on October 23rd. His performance on La Blogothèque will surely be a touching one, made all the more intimate without the crowd watching.
