Keaton Henson is back with new single “Lazy Magician”. The track is Henson’s first new music, since his 2024’s instrumental album Somnambulant Cycles and is co-written with Ratboys’ Julia Steiner. Speaking on the single, 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.”

“Lazy Magician” was Produced by Luke Sital-Singh, is described a downtrodden duet that unfolds like a wistful daydream with Henson singing “I’m a lazy amateur magician / I can’t even make myself disappear” over muted chords, with Steiner replying “I’m a faulty high flying acrobat / I can hardly get myself out of bed.”

Speaking on the single, 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.

I wrote the guitar parts and first lines to the drum machine and we both sort of just free-wrote the rest. Allowing our subconscious to form the narrative. I like that it’s almost like these two lonely souls singing next to each other, but sometimes over each other, like we’re so lost in our own self-reflection we’re unaware we’re in a duet.

Prior to being a folk thing I played in hardcore and emo bands,” he shares. “It’s definitely pulling from the things I listened to when I was 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.”

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.

order “Lazy Magician” HERE