"Try" by Keaton Henson and Daniel Herskedal

Keaton Henson's new song "Try" with brass musician Daniel Herskedal, from his soon-to-be-released "Somnambulant Cycles" out May 31st, 2024. The achingly beautiful sound of existence, a trip to the end of the world...just look out the window and see.

https://keatonhenson.com/

"Career Day" by Keaton Henson

Brand new trembling beauty from Keaton Henson (previously here), just released day before yesterday.

"Career Day."

I am devastated by this. Slain.

I'm an astronaut, baby
I work in the night
I'm a certain kinda crazy
I live in my mind

I'm a deep sea diver
I find ways to breathe
I'm deep undercover
I don't look like me

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

I'm a part time mortician
I cannot shake death
And I'm an aging physician
Ain't got much healin' left

I'm a character actor
I feed myself wine
But it leaves me pretty good at
Pretending I'm fine

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

I'm a struggling comedian
I can't find the laughs
I'm a poor mathematician
I do things by halves

I'm a weekday dancer
Can't kick the movement from my shoes
I'm a heartless casino
I win when you lose

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

http://keatonhenson.com/

"Breathing Out" by Keaton Henson

Exquisite, achingly beautiful and agonizingly intense music. This is "Breathing Out," the last movement of Six Lethargies, a 70-minute orchestral piece by singer-songwriter-and-now-composer Keaton Henson (previously here, here, and here).

"Six Lethargies is a six part, long form work for string orchestra, written by musician, composer, writer and visual artist Keaton Henson. The album explores themes of trauma, empathy, mental illness, and the relationship between music and emotion. It was created intensively over three years, during intense episodes of the very themes it explores. He used his personal experience to plot out six distinct elements of trauma, anxiety and emotional difficulties.

Unable himself to read or write music, Henson first created maps of his personal experience, using complex linear drawings and paintings which he then translated into themes and melodies. A common theme throughout his work is always the element of emotion and vulnerable honesty; he shares the darkest and most complex parts of his personal experiences via his art, leading to work of breathtaking emotional resonance. By contrast, Henson himself is generally reclusive, revealing little else of himself, wherever possible avoiding interviews or public appearances.

As the Six Lethargies project began to take shape, Henson reached out to neuroscientists, psychologists and music theorists, to learn more about the acute relationship between music and emotion, and specifically its effect on us physiologically. ‘Thrill engineer’ and bio-data expert Brendan Walker worked closely with Henson to investigate this relationship and developed software to monitor electrodermal activity (EDA) in order to create a real time visual representation of the link between feelings, anxiety and music.

In fact, when Six Lethargies made its stunning sold out debut at London’s Barbican in July 2018, a portion of the audience were hooked up to ‘galvanic skin response monitors’, which read their anxiety levels in real time whilst listening to the performance, this in turn was fed to the lighting desk and it was this that controlled the colour and intensity of the venue’s lighting rig. As a result the audience were effectively watching how they were feeling while listening to the music, and as a result this amplified the emotional response of the audience to the music.

Known for his past struggles to perform live due to anxiety disorders, Henson himself watched from the sidelines as the audience reacted to an Orchestra performing the work with lighting controlled by their emotions.

This show marked the first new work by Henson for several years, he had released a number of indie/folk albums in previous years – resulting in plays on Radio 1 and huge critical praise, but due in part to the challenges posed by this growing renown and constant demands for him to perform live and appear publicly he had instead decided to retreat from the public eye, disappearing from the world of music and art. However, following the success of the Barbican event, performances at Sydney Opera House and the National Concert Hall Dublin followed. These shows were immersive, measurable experiences which showed how music can physiologically affect the body. They also illustrated how anxiety can be monitored and how it’s triggers could be potentially monitored or predicted, perhaps even eventually controlled, an important factor to consider when dealing with anxiety.

The success of these shows led to the recording of the Six Lethargies album, recorded earlier this year with the Liverpool Philharmonic at The Friary in Liverpool. Through its six movements the finished recording conveys both a personal, internal experience but it also seeks to create the possibility of a similar physiological response in the listener.

Six Lethargies is a profound and intense musical experience, but it is also, completely tonal, musical and ultimately an enjoyable listen on various levels. In spite of its subject matter and meticulous design, it is music that can be listened to as you would Henson’s compositional heroes such as Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Barber and Pärt. However, it can also be listened to as a cathartic and purgative experience, unbroken from beginning to end, taking the mind and body through a series of peaks and troughs and eventually leaving it in a stimulated but calm state."
from thankfolkforthat.com, https://thankfolkforthat.com/new-release-video-keaton-henson-breathing-out/

http://keatonhenson.com/

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by UNKLE featuring Keaton Henson

This is a special cover of Roberta Flack's 1972 hit "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by UNKLE featuring vocals by Keaton Henson (previously here).

http://unkle.info/
http://keatonhenson.com/

Just watched...

..."Young Men," an exquisite dance film about war by BalletBoyz.

In 2015, the all-male English dance company BalletBoyz--started by veteran dancers and co-Artistic Directors Michael Nunn and William Trevitt--mounted a highly successful live dance performance about World War I and the effect of war on young men titled, appropriately enough, "Young Men." And now that stage performance has been adapted and filmed on location in northern France in locations that simulate battlefields of World War I. Choreographed by Iván Pérez and danced--as well as acted--beautifully by the members of BalletBoyz, the film is hypnotic and intimate. It doesn't try to tell the story of an entire war, an entire armed force, or an entire country's reaction. It is told through the lens of a very small regiment, and most specifically a soldier for whom the war is clearly against his nature. At the core is a fight between two men: the Sergeant and the Soldier.

But the most arresting part of the film is the miraculous score by Keaton Henson (previously here). It is gripping, tender, and profound.

The trailer for the film gives you a good idea of its tone and timbre.

Here is the end of the "Training With The Sergeant" section:

And here is a bit of the "In The Trenches" section:

It was shown on PBS here in the States as part of the Great Performances series. I don't see where one can buy a DVD of the film. Looks like if you are in the UK, you can stream it from BBC, but otherwise, a DVD of the original stage production is available through the BalletBoyz SHOP section of their site.
http://www.youngmenmovie.com/
http://www.balletboyz.com/home/

"Epilogue" by Keaton Henson

Since it is National Poetry Month, I have dedicated this month, April 2017, exclusively to postings of poetry. But I can't resist interrupting the poetry for some musical and visual poetry. On Thursday, English folk rock musician, visual artist, and poet Keaton Henson released a surprise single song, "Epilogue." And it is kind of devastating.

Henson's style is usually highly emotional and melancholy, but this song veers into profound territory around the 2:10 mark with his repeated line, "trying to breathe" and the accompanying subtle electronic distortion.

This is followed by a dream-like string section that is effectively slightly off kilter but achingly lovely and heart-rending, full of a cosmic tenderness and longing...then a section of a murmured voice, possibly played backward.

And of course the gradual dissolution of the entire image is the perfect way to close such a deeply expressive and wrenching statement.

The letters at the end of the film are encoded words using a simple 3-letter shift, or Caesar Cipher: when translated, it reads, simply, "Be kind."

Here's to me
I'm on the edge of my seat
Bound to fall
But I'm hoping you fall into me

Here's to us
Here's to the ties that I've cut
Along the way
Here's to the eyes that I've shut

Here's to my soul
Here's to the weight of my gold
Here's to the words that I've sold
Here's to the cold deep in my bones

Here's to my door
Here's to records that no one would pay for
Songs that I wrote and got laid for

Here's to the floor
Here's to the floor

Here's to my rent
Here's to the money I spent on
Trying to do what I'm bent on,
Trying to breathe
Trying to breathe
Trying to breathe
Trying to breathe

http://keatonhenson.com/