Keaton Henson - Monument (2LP) - White Vinyl

Keaton Henson’s Monument arrived on 23 October 2020 through Play It Again Sam, and it carries the unmistakable weight of a goodbye. He wrote it in the wake of losing his father, the actor Nicky Henson, who died in 2019, and you can hear the record working through that grief in real time. Henson has always lived in the quiet corners of a song, but here the quiet feels devotional. The piano creaks, the strings hover like breath, and his voice sits so close it almost startles you when it cracks.

You can trace the album’s path through its singles. Ontario drifts in on a gentle pulse and a melody that feels like it’s been sitting in your chest for years. It’s not a grand statement. It’s a small room, a winter window, a name on a map that suddenly means everything. Career Day is plainer, almost diaristic, but that’s the trick. Henson’s plain speech cuts deeper than any flourish. Prayer sits near the center like a candle. He doesn’t try to solve anything. He just sits with the ache and lets the harmonies swell and recede until the room feels different. These songs don’t push for catharsis so much as they wait for it, and somehow that patience becomes the point.

The sound of Monument is all lived-in details. Close-miked piano that seems to carry the dust of the keys. Strings that arrive in thin ribbons, not big cinematic waves. Acoustic guitar that peeks out to answer a line and then disappears. You get the sense parts were recorded at odd hours, when the house was quiet enough to catch the click of a pedal or the scrape of a chair. Henson has a long track record of making intimate recordings that feel handmade, and this one leans into that craft with real intent. Nothing is rushed. Even the silences feel edited with care.

There’s a tenderness to how he writes about memory here. He doesn’t mythologize his father. He notices the way a voice lingers in a room, the way a joke lands a beat late now, the way ordinary rituals become monuments once someone is gone. The title fits. These songs aren’t stone statues. They’re smaller markers that you pass each day and nod to because you know what they mean. When a string line swells, it’s never to knock you over. It’s more like a hand on your shoulder reminding you to breathe.

If you’re crate-digging for Keaton Henson vinyl, Monument is the one you hold up to the light and think, I’m taking this home. The album has that late-night pull that suits a turntable and a quiet room. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t need to be. Henson’s voice, barely above a whisper, turns the simplest phrase into a confession. Fans who discovered him through Dear… or Birthdays will hear the same fragile honesty, but with the perspective of someone who has sat with loss long enough to speak about it softly. Monument vinyl has become a quiet favorite in shops for exactly that reason. It’s the record staff put on when the store is almost empty and the lights are warm.

The record also landed with a gentle swell of respect from across the aisle of listeners who don’t always meet in the same section. Folk fans love its unvarnished feel. Modern classical and ambient listeners hear the restraint and the way the strings shade the edges rather than fill the center. Even singer-songwriter skeptics tend to stop and listen to Prayer when it comes on and ask what it is. It makes sense. Henson’s writing is built on detail, not drama, and detail travels.

If you’re looking to buy Keaton Henson records online, this album is an easy recommendation, and it sits nicely alongside other Keaton Henson albums on vinyl for a complete picture of how he’s grown. I’ve seen Monument tucked into endcaps at a Melbourne record store next to Nick Drake and Sufjan Stevens, which feels right. It’s an album you trust to carry a room without raising its voice, the kind that makes you want to keep a small ritual around it. Flip it on a rainy night. Let the needles of the strings and the hush of the piano build a little shelter. For anyone building a thoughtful shelf of vinyl records Australia wide or anywhere else, this belongs within reach.