Keaton Henson announces new album, Somnambulant Cycles

Last month, Henson released "Tokyo Laundry" as the first track from Somnambulant Cycles. In honour of World Sleep Day. Primarily instrumental project, the album explores the feeling of subconscious states. It was written to create a sense of physiologically fertile calm - the calm where ideas come from, where emotions are felt but pass by like pedestrians. An album in which the listener can be fully immersed.

Speaking of the new single, Henson says: "Try is a piece about the emotional intensity of transient states. I wanted to work with Daniel because his sound is so vast, and to me feels like the strange warmth of sleeplessness. I wanted to write something that uses Daniel’s sound as a vast open landscape, stretching out in front of you, but then have a hyper-vulnerable viola, like a whispered conversation taking place within that landscape."

Filmed at the exact moment of dawn on the coast of England, the music video for "Try" follows the journey of an empty bus through barren surreal landscapes, where the world is still asleep - created for the viewer to take a moment of stillness.

On the music video, Henson said: “The video is intended to be a moment of stillness. To just experience a journey through a surreal world, and reflect on the inner world. It feels to me like a meditation on solitude in motion. I just wanted to put a huge amount of thought and time into creating something that people can experience quietly for a moment, without anything bright and flashy trying to grab your attention - but with lots to see and read into if you allow yourself the time.”

Following on from his 2023 album House Party, Somnambulant Cycles is more of a spiritual successor to 2014’s Romantic Works, with his sound and sensibility transformed by having since created seven albums, acclaimed scores for film and dance, and the vast orchestral work Six Lethargies.

Tracklist:

1. Arriving
2. Try feat. Daniel Herskedal
3. Dorma
4. Sandwalking
5. Awake/Alive
6. Bleached feat. Daniel Herskedal
7. Crows
8. Even
9. Tokyo Laundry
10. I Sat
11. Like Chalk feat. Hinako Omori
12. Noss
13. Us, Together
14. And All At Once We Were Radiant