Keaton Henson - Dear (Limited Edition)

• Dear re-issue plus three 're-produced' bonus tracks
• 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl
• Bespoke matt sleeve with spot UV debossed artwork
• Exclusive fine art print by Keaton Henson
• Individually hand-signed and numbered
• Limited to 1000 copies worldwide 

“Dear... is remarkable” - Sunday Times
“Beautiful and uncompromising” - Q
"His songs seem to lift listeners up somewhere around the heavens" - The Guardian

Keaton Henson did not set out to make a debut album. He started writing songs as a personal project, never intending to release them, which goes some way to explaining why they are so intensely honest and intimate.

He recorded at home, under the Heathrow flightpath, using found objects and the limited instruments he had collected at that time (late 2009/early 2010). Recording took place in the gaps between planes passing overhead, based on a runway schedule printed next to his desk – at times you can hear plane noise at the beginning or end of the tracks.

Under duress from a friend, he eventually made a handful of DIY music videos and sent them into the world. These received an unexpectedly fervent response, prompting him to release 120 CDs of the album, drawing and sewing the sleeves by hand and personalising each one with the name of the purchaser – i.e. “Dear... John” – making each album a letter addressed to whoever bought it.

These sold out in hours, as did a further 500 copies (these featured covers stamped by Keaton to save time). Keaton’s “puppet suicide” themed video for "Charon" won awards, and more and more people discovered his music until Zane Lowe seized on "You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are", playing it multiple times on Radio 1 and calling it "one of the most special pieces of music I've heard in a very very long time".

This led to rapid demand for the album and an official album release in 2012, with Rough Trade making Dear their Album of the Month.

This time, the sleeve featured Keaton’s drawing of a hare, chosen as the perfect example of an animal that does extraordinary things on the adrenaline created by fear. 1000 vinyl copies were made and quickly sold out.

Ever since then, Keaton’s fans have been requesting a vinyl re-release. The opportunity to do this arose after Keaton collaborated successfully with The Vinyl Factory on the vinyl release of his critically acclaimed Romantic Works.

The new Dear vinyl edition is once again limited to 1000 copies and accompanied by an art print by Keaton. There are three bonus tracks, of which Keaton says “There were certain songs from the same era as Dear that I felt in hindsight should perhaps have been included, and wondered what they would sound like with new production added.”

THIS EDITION HAS NOW SOLD OUT.

Tracklist: 
A1. Prologue
A2. You Don't Know How Lucky You Are
A3. Charon
A4. Oliver Dalston Browning
A5. Sarah Minor
A6. Small Hands
A7. Flesh And Bone

B8. Nests 
B9. Not That You'd Even Notice
B10. Party Song
B11. To Your Health (Re-produced)
B12. Strawbear (re-produced)
B13. About Sophie (re-produced)