A dreamy envelopment takes hold throughout Beautiful Mysterious, the new album from Dublin-based artist Keeley. The release is a compelling thematic follow-up to last year’s acclaimed debut album Floating Above Everything Else, which memorialized the late Inga Maria Hauser, a German teenager who was murdered after going missing in 1988.
“Floating Above Everything Else was basically an album of eleven short stories about Inga,” Keeley explains. “Beautiful Mysterious however is a sonic novel. An even more immersive experience, and one with a very definite narrative arc. It’s a darker and more extreme record than the debut with more savage jagged edges yet it’s imbued overall with a spacious, nocturnal ambience.”
“Inga Maria’s Dream” is especially riveting — melding jangly guitars and serene vocals for a dreamy pop allure. “Time moves too fast, from the present to the past,” the vocals emit, capturing the importance of every minute within a world where death or misfortune can arise in a moment’s notice. “Last Words” invigorates with more distortion-friendly lingering, capturing the ethos of a backpacker/traveler in the “wonder where I stay tonight,” hook — celebrating an adventurous spirit with ambition and dreams ahead of her.
Another standout comes in “Inga Hauser,” touting a Johnny Marr-esque guitar ferocity that jangles its way into the “stepping off the boat,” introduction — and asking tragically thereafter “did you even get one happy minute to breathe the Irish air?” The title-bearing refrain exudes a grimly affecting feeling, conveying tragedy in artfully repetitious form, akin to Manic Street Preachers’ “Kevin Carter.” Beautiful Mysterious is a movingly melodic success from Keeley.
Keeley elaborates further on the album’s inspiration:
“I’ve often been asked why I choose to write about only one subject, and one that might seem macabre to the uninitiated. But to me Inga’s story is full of hope, vitality, beauty, mystery, and poignancy. I felt a burning compulsion to make it my mission in life to memorialise her short life any way I could, and I approach each song from a different angle every time. It’s an endless source of inspiration to me. I suppose I could write in a conventional way about love, angst and the like, but that’s not me. I don’t have relationships, I don’t have holidays, pets or even a TV. Music is everything to me, it’s the greatest thing in the world, and the visionary vessel through which I connect to my muse and facilitate the flow of songs that provide a vehicle for her voice.”
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“Inga Maria’s Dream” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup, as part of the artist’s promotional campaign.
