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Brooklyn-based musician Brian Keenan creates songs that explore the dichotomy of emotions within each of us, through vivid vignettes and dreamlike wanderings. From the character studies of Almost, where each protagonist finds themselves facing their own demons, to the real experiences depicted in Look Around – Keenan finds himself exploring life and death, often at the same time.

Almost is only 3 tracks long, but each is an ambitious impressionistic mini-movie. The main character in the title track is lost in their work, working themself to death and wondering what it's all for. In "Washed Away", the character walks the Santa Monica pier, taking in the scenery and drifting from location to location like driftwood on the beach. The chorus builds and culminates with the image of a glorious sandcastle being washed away by the rising tide. In "What They'll Find", the main character is on the run from the law, evading their past and trying to stay hidden. Each track explores the complexity of the characters, neither good nor bad, hero or villain – like real life the story isn't always easy to pin down.

In Look Around, Keenan stretches out into personal stories that cover love, loss, finding purpose, life and death in a series of found snapshots. In the opener "In Between Two States of Being", it finds the artist caught in limbo between reality and a dream, happiness and sadness, life and death. The theme of being in two states simultaneously is a through line – in the title track Keenan pleads "Look around, this is your life. Do you like what you see, because now is really happening." It's an assessment of life both blunt and poignant - is this the reality you've created for yourself, and can you change it? In "Still Life", Keenan dissects the death of a friend in slow motion, stopping time itself in the moment between life and death until it is in fact a still life laid out before him.

Both albums were recorded, paused and restarted as the world shut down during the pandemic. Keenan tirelessly worked on the tracks in his home studio in Brooklyn, NY – tracking and mixing countless versions of the albums along the way. Brian's partner Jen Keenan also shaped the tracks, delving into the sonic impression and themes, as well as lending her voice and keyboard work. Collaborators James Preston and Rob Heath laid the groundwork for the tracks in a live session with engineer Alex Lipsen at Russell Street Recording in Brooklyn NY.

Keenan is well known to create elaborate and densely arranged productions on past albums Fits & Starts and Today This Year. The new albums continue his fascination with harmony, spanning many influences and genres. His music has always been difficult to categorize as it's part folk, part rock and his voice is uniquely saccharine against a melancholic tapestry of music. Guitarists Steve Schiltz and Kirk Schoenherr and keyboardists Todd Caldwell and Jen Keenan add their signature expansive textures that give the songs width and a rich emotional experience behind the stories in the lyrics.

These two releases find the artist summing up different periods of his life - exploring the complex and nuanced grey areas of life in vivid color. The lyrics challenge the listener to dig deeper and find their own meaning in the songs, against Keenan's genre-bending country/folk/rock sound that keeps expanding with every album.