‘Just For Today’: David Keenan recorded and released an album in just six hours
On Friday, February 6th, 2026, David Keenan walked into The Clinic Studios in Dublin, Ireland. A session was already booked, but on the train into the city, the artist realised it was Bandcamp Friday and an idea emerged. By 4pm that same day, he would release a record.
For a long time now, Keenan has been making music on his own terms. His debut album, A Beginner’s Guide to Bravery, was a big, quote-unquote ‘proper’ release. It came along with singles, music videos, live shows, and teaser videos. All of it paid off as it landed as the biggest-selling vinyl record in the country that week, and number one on the independent chart as it was shared through the indie label, Rubyworks.
His second album, What Then?, was much the same, with the traditional run of things and a PR team hired in. That’s when I first spoke to Keenan direct. But even in that chat, and in the meandering, explorative sound of that album, it was clear things were changing, and the artist wanted to break out.
Soon after, Keenan’s released went into overdrive as he quit the normal working way of it all. Instead, he started releasing through his own label and basically putting out whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Tunes would just kind of appear, second parts to EPs would emerge like spontaneous afterbirths, and even with the release of Modern Mythologies, Keenan cast off the typical way of touring to instead race around small towns in Ireland, connecting with audiences and communities in the rawest way he could.
By now, Keenan doesn’t have PR. Instead, on beautiful occasions, I’ll wake up to an email direct from him, always signed off “grá”. Fans of his are well used to his methodless way of working, so when a new album randomly appears, it’s hardly a shock.
But Just For Today is undeniably his boldest random delivery to date. Arriving at the studio at 11am, Keenan decided then and there that he would be uploading something for Bandcamp Friday – he would be uploading an entire album, and by 4pm, he had done just that. Recorded and released in mere hours, Just For Today represents the best of Keenan because of its immediacy and the lack of time to polish it up.
However, the key is that the album wasn’t made in a frantic mood, trying to cash in on Bandcamp’s no-fees day. Keenan said he specifically “wasn’t panicked to make a deadline either”, as with no label breathing down his neck and no preplanning, this was “just a coming together of multiple things”.
The attitude was simply ‘why not?’. With a studio booked for a day, and Cian Synnott there to record it, Keenan felt his notepad burning a hole in his pocket. Having only just released a record, he seemed to have so much to say but yet be staring down the barrel of an extended period of expected silence, as we assume artists will fuck off and shut up for at least a good few months post-release. He didn’t want to do that, as he said, “I had some of the songs for a few months, and some like ‘Backfields’ and ‘Healing After The Harm’ I was editing in the head with each new take,” building the album out of drafts or in-the-moment demos.
If there’s one thing Keenan is passionate about, it’s exactly this – casting off the machinery of the music industry that smothers the heart of art. “The whole campaign setup and overthinking that can come with the releasing of music can really kill that exciting and raw creative energy,” he said.
“So this is a letting go of that and trusting the heart.”
David Keenan
And heart it has plenty.
Just For Today is of miraculously high quality for a project made in mere hours. It’s the type of folk album others would work for months and months on, but with Keenan’s emotive vocals, his natural tendency towards poetry and the ease of performance fostered by years of busking and gigging, he needs no time and no help. Just a microphone and a recording light glowing red, the beautiful of these tracks doesn’t need any intervention, so again – ‘why not?’, why not just get them down and get them out when there’s no bettering the raw best?
For him, it’s a necessity. “I need to write and release, or my head becomes like a hoarder’s house,” he said. But Just For Today and its beauty also pose a challenge to other artists, or an invitation.
“The system can suffocate expression, I think artists need to get back to the pure joy and spontaneity of creating something and look beyond metrics,” he said, imploring others to take that one studio day and just make and share with the abandon that makes the creative heart soar with excitement.
