Brian Kirk’s Debut Album, Witness To, Reflects on Family, Love, and Tragedy

Brooklyn-based indie acid-folk songwriter Brian Kirk’s debut album, Witness To (6/17) is a series of 7 tracks that serve as a dedicated homage to his late father who passed away during the height of the pandemic. 

“The hospice centers were already overcrowded due to all the covid patients.” Kirk remembers.  “So my father spent his final days in the living room of my childhood home under my and my family’s care.  It was a very surreal experience.”

This coupling of the painful and the surreal becomes evident over the course of the album; “White Walls” and “Ferns” carry the voice of someone existing in a small and lonely place, while tracks like “Not Thereness” and “Rain Dance” are wrought with mystery and otherworldliness that border on meditative. 

“I didn’t want the whole thing to be doom and gloom though,” Brian Kirk explains.  “I felt as though the darker elements of the music would  come through just by the nature of the subject matter. So I primarily focused on making sure there was a prevailing element of redemption and growth by the end.”

The final track, titled “Holding Hands” is a sentimental send-off for the record, and is Kirk’s clearest example of light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s an unexpected departure from the dominant mood of the music, in which Brian’s lyrical and harmonious stylings are on full display. 

Summer releases typically conjure images of emerging sunshine and unmitigated joy.  And while this music is decidedly not either of these things, Witness To is a timely record.  For the many people who have recently lost loved ones or find themselves facing any of life’s daunting challenges, the album offers personalized understanding and a niche brand of zen that will resonate deeply with curious listeners.

       “ For lovers of all forms of folk and guitar music, from tuneful campfire singalongs to meditative reflections on dreary freak folk, Brooklyn-based songwriter Brian Kirk offers his debut single, “Ferns” from Witness To, due out later this year.

        Kirk explains, “‘Ferns’ is about familial love and also  familial loss.  My father passed away during the height of the pandemic from colon cancer.  Because of the overcrowding in hospitals, my family and I took care of him at the end of his life in our living room at home.  The whole album is dedicated to him and chronicles that period of my life.  My dad’s eyes were green, so that’s where the idea for the song “Ferns” was born.”

        After experiences playing in various musical projects and bands in his home state of North Carolina, Brian Kirk moved to New York to attend The New School for music. When the pandemic shut down New York City, and his father’s condition worsened, Brian moved back home to help care for him. His father passed away in April 2020, and  upon returning to Brooklyn, he decided to write and record an album in which he took the musical reins fully for himself.

        “I really like playing music with other people, but for something like this, I wanted to say what I needed to say in precisely the way I imagined.  This could have been an album full of doom and gloom- and I guess there’s a little bit of that- but I wanted it to be more about the processing of something traumatic. It’s something everyone eventually comes face to face with,” says Kirk.  

        Now, as live music is beginning to re-emerge, the world is entering a period of time of digesting the last few years. “Ferns” strikes a timely chord with everyone looking to reflect on a difficult time and, ultimately, looking to heal. ”