Kenton Hall is a Canadian actor, author, director, and musician who has built one of the more quietly remarkable creative careers in independent British music from his base in Lincoln, UK. Beyond music, Hall wrote and directed the feature film A Dozen Summers, published his first book Bisection in 2019, and has consistently operated across creative disciplines with the kind of restless intelligence that refuses to settle into a single lane. His first solo album under the Kenton Hall and The Necessary Measures banner, Idiopath, arrived in January 2023 as an ambitious 36-track statement accompanied by Omniopath, a companion album featuring the same songs covered by over thirty other artists. It was the kind of project that only someone with genuine creative conviction and a lot of friends in the right places could pull off.

Songs for the Swung is the sophomore album and arrived on March 6, 2026. The Necessary Measures on this record are Hall himself on vocals, bass, guitars, organ, piano, and percussion, Brett Richardson on backing vocals, bass, guitars, theremin, and Weissenborn, and Mark Haynes on drums, timpani, and percussion. Trumpet, trombone, and French horn from Lev Borovskyi appear on select tracks, alongside additional contributions from Chris Conway and others. The album was produced across three separate production teams, mixed by Steve Horry, Chris Ilett, Brett Richardson, and Wal Walton depending on the track, and mastered by Brett Richardson throughout.

Track-by-Track

1. THE SUN SHONE DOWN

The lead single and the album’s opening statement, a track that arrived ahead of the record in September 2024 and set expectations high. It is immediately apparent why it was chosen to introduce the album. The production is warm and layered, Hall’s voice sitting at the centre of an arrangement that builds carefully without ever losing sight of the melody underneath it all. Grand piano and strings from earlier sessions give the track a cinematic quality that opens the record in the best possible way, spacious, assured, and genuinely inviting.

2. HOLLY SAYS

The album shifts into something more upbeat and raw here. This is character-driven songwriting at its most precise, the kind of track that makes you feel you know the person it is about before the second verse arrives. Hall has always had a novelist’s eye for the telling detail, which is perhaps unsurprising given his literary background, and that quality is fully present here. The arrangement is creative and the vocal performance is one of the most raw on the record.

3. WHAT SHE’S ABOUT TO DO

The tension in the title is built into the track itself, a song that sits in the suspended moment before something changes. Hall handles the narrative with care, never quite resolving the question the title poses, which turns out to be exactly the right choice. The arrangement has a held-breath quality that suits the subject matter perfectly, and the production keeps things deliberately incomplete, an ending that is not quite an ending.

4. HAVE YOU HEARD THIS ONE?

Produced by Hall and Steve Horry separately from the album’s main production sessions, this track has a slightly different texture that suits it well. The title carries the casual energy of a story being shared between friends, and the track delivers on that promise, looser and more playful than its surroundings without losing the craft underneath. It is one of the more immediately engaging moments on the record and sits well in the album’s midsection as a change of pace.

5. I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE

One of the album’s most emotionally open tracks and the one where Lev Borovskyi’s brass contributions, trumpet, trombone, and French horn, are most prominently felt. The horns give the song a warmth and fullness that lifts it into something approaching the anthemic without overreaching. The lyric itself is a study in recognition and connection, the feeling of knowing someone so completely that they are present even in their absence, and Hall delivers it with a sincerity that lands completely.

6. HEART ENOUGH

The album’s most quietly devastating track. The question embedded in the title runs through the whole song without ever quite being answered, and Hall is wise enough to leave it that way. The production is spare and focused, mixed by Chris Ilett, and the restraint in the arrangement gives the lyric space to breathe and land. It is the kind of song that arrives differently on every listen depending on what you are carrying when you press play.

7. LICK OF PAINT

The album’s most wryly observed track, a song that takes a domestic metaphor and presses on it until something more complicated emerges underneath. Hall’s wit is a defining quality of his songwriting and it is fully present here, worn lightly enough that the humor and the sadness coexist without either undermining the other. It is the kind of track that rewards close listening and repays multiple plays with different textures each time.

8. GOOD AT WHAT I DO

The second single and one of the most immediately striking tracks on the record. Lev Borovskyi’s trumpet and trombone return here, giving the song a swagger that the album has held in reserve until this point. The production has more propulsion than anything preceding it, and Hall rides the momentum with obvious enjoyment. It is the track most likely to lodge itself in your head after a first listen and the one that best demonstrates the full range of what The Necessary Measures can do when everything clicks.

9. MAKE HER PROUD

One of the album’s most personal and emotionally direct performances. The title implies obligation and devotion in equal measure and the track holds both without resolving the tension between them. Hall’s vocal here is among his most unguarded on the record, and the production from the core team of Hall, Ilett, and Richardson frames it with a sensitivity that makes the track feel genuinely intimate and uplifting. It is a moment of real vulnerability in an album that earns its emotional weight carefully.

10. A STORY THAT YOU TELL

Produced by Hall and Wal Walton separately from the album’s main sessions, this track has its own distinct character. The title hints at the gap between narrative and reality, the story we construct around events versus what the events actually were, and the song sits thoughtfully in that space. Mixed by Walton, it has a slightly more open and stripped down/open quality that distinguishes it from its surroundings and gives the album’s late stretch a welcome change of atmosphere.

11. BEFORE YOU

Produced alongside Steve Horry like track four, Before You carries a similar looseness in its approach but takes it somewhere more reflective. You can hear the heaviness in the instrumentals as well. This is a song about the before, the version of a life that existed prior to the presence that changed it, and Hall handles that temporal dislocation with the kind of understated precision that characterizes his best writing. It is an upbeat and affecting penultimate track that sets up the close perfectly.

12. STRANGELY, I’M FEELING MUCH BETTER TODAY

The album closes with one of its most perfectly titled tracks. The “strangely” in the title does all the heavy lifting, acknowledging that the feeling is unexpected, that things have shifted somehow without any clean explanation, and that the shift is real despite its mystery. Lev Borovskyi’s brass returns for this finale, giving the close a warmth and completeness that the album earns entirely. It is a genuinely satisfying ending, the kind that makes you want to start the record again from the beginning to hear how everything connects.

Bonus Tracks

Disc 2 includes radio edits of two of the album’s standout tracks, giving them a slightly tighter shape for airplay purposes without losing what makes them work. Both are worth hearing in their edited form even if you already know the originals well.

THE SUN SHONE DOWN (Radio Edit)

The lead single gets a trimmed version that sharpens the focus on the central melody and hook without sacrificing the warmth that made the original so immediately arresting. The grand piano and strings that give the track its cinematic quality remain fully intact, and the edit demonstrates just how strong the song’s core structure is when stripped back slightly. For radio purposes it is an ideal introduction to what Kenton Hall and The Necessary Measures do best.

LICK OF PAINT (Radio Edit)

The wry domestic metaphor of the album version translates beautifully into the tighter radio format. If anything the edit makes the wit in the writing even more apparent, the compression of the arrangement bringing the lyrical dexterity front and center in a way that rewards listeners who might be hearing Kenton Hall for the first time. It is a smart choice for a radio edit and a good reminder that the best songs tend to reveal new dimensions no matter what form they take.

Final Thoughts

Songs for the Swung is the work of an artist who has spent enough time across enough creative disciplines to know exactly what he wants from a record and how to get there. Kenton Hall writes songs with a novelist’s precision, produces them with a musician’s instincts, and performs them with a directness that makes even the most oblique lyric feel personal. The Necessary Measures give him the platform to do all of that at the level the material deserves. For fans of intelligent, carefully crafted alternative and indie music that trusts its audience to pay attention, this one is essential listening in 2026.

What did you think of the album? Stay tuned to MusicOnTheRox.com for all your music news and reviews.