Biography

Since 2005, Bob Keal has released music under the name Small Sur. Keal has always been somewhat elusive--touring occasionally, self-releasing all but two of his full-length records, and rarely throwing elbows in the attention economy. Despite this relative obscurity, his unique and understated songwriting has been hailed as “recuperative” (PopMatters), “stoic, dark, and exuberant” (Tiny Mix Tapes), and “serene minimalism [which] conjures large expanses of natural landscapes at their most beautiful” (NPR). Attic Room is Bob Keal’s fifth full-length album as Small Sur and first since his daughter’s birth in 2014. In this collection of songs, Keal meditates on the rhythms of domestic life and fatherhood while discovering newfound depths and maturity in his songwriting. Attic Room emerged from hundreds of song fragments that Keal scratched into the margins of life since the release of 2013’s Labor. The result is a “bedroom country” record, one that is inescapably intimate while also evoking the wide-open Midwestern landscapes of Keal’s childhood.