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KEATON HENSON’s
‘Insomnia’:
Tracing the Contours of
a Restless Soul
(Single Review)

Review by Audrey Songvilay

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It’s 2am and my favourite artist of all time, Keaton Henson, has released a song called Insomnia. How fitting, because this is the hour it belongs to. The hour when the house is hollow, the streets are quiet, and you’re left alone with your own mind. Henson has always written for these hours: the fragile, sleepless ones where despair and restlessness collide.

Keaton Henson is a musician, artist, and composer from England. He rarely performs live, and is very shy. But when he does, it’s in intimate, sacred spaces: cathedrals, museums, concert halls. His music blends folk, classical, and indie influences, marked by sparse arrangements, and lyrics that plunge into love, loss, depression, and the human psyche. He doesn’t like to talk about himself, so instead we listen. Not to speak for him, but to trace the contours of his soul.

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Ahead of the release of his upcoming ninth album, Parader, on 21 November 2025, Henson has shared a very personal stop-motion video for Insomnia, an intimate visual accompaniment to the song that amplifies its haunting, sleepless atmosphere.

“Oh wait for me, I’ll hold my teeth in
Don’t panic so, I’m only bleeding”

A confession to the night, fragile and trembling. The skeletal guitar, the ghostly production, the silences between notes cradle the ache, letting it breathe as you lie awake, listening, remembering something you thought you’d never survive.

“What has the daylight done for me but hurt my eyes
And the haunted 7-Eleven’s open all night”

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Daylight is cruel; it burns. The mundane becomes unbearable because it reminds you of absence. Fluorescent convenience stores, empty streets, and the hum of the night. These are the markers of insomnia, and Henson turns them into poetry.

“Who says you need to sleep
I’m giving up the night”

The music drifts, restless, just like the body that cannot surrender to sleep.

“Oh I don’t wanna dream
When all I ever see
Is all the ways I let you down”

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Dreams are cruel; they offer no escape. They replay all your failings, all the ways your heart broke, all the ways you couldn’t hold on. And yet, the sparse instrumentation, only makes it more intimate, and more impossible to look away from.

“The TV shows I love are all off-air
So I’ll just watch the years rip out my hair”

There’s something unbearably intimate in that line. It’s not just about boredom, but there’s a sense of hollowness of time when nothing familiar or comforting is left to cling to. The shows that once offered escape, companionship, small moments of joy, have ended, leaving only the relentless tick of hours and the quiet reminder that life moves on even when you don’t.

This song is a waking nightmare wrapped in a lullaby. A pulse of obsession, despair, and longing, lingering in your chest, your body, your every restless thought. It lets memories and anxieties replay over and over, keeping you wide awake, full of ache, painfully alive in the hollow hours. And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what Keaton Henson wants you to feel.

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Follow KEATON HENSON
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Spotify

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AMNPLIFY – DB