- Solo Album Magenta Light arrives April 20
- First Track “Look For The Moon” Released Today
After 13 years holding it down behind the kit for We Are Scientists, Keith Carne is done being the guy in the back keeping time. He’s stepping forward, synths glowing, heart fully exposed.
His debut single, “Look For The Moon,” is out now… a skybound, Madchester-kissed love letter wrapped in shimmering textures and steady pulse. It also signals the arrival of his first solo album, Magenta Light, landing independently on April 20, 2026.
The song is written for his wife, artist Hayley Youngs, and it lives in that strange altitude where touring musicians survive – somewhere between airport runways, recycled cabin air, and the quiet ache of distance. It’s cinematic without being dramatic. Vulnerable without being fragile. A love song that looks up instead of falling apart.
Carne explains it best:
“I travel a lot in my touring work with other bands and I miss her profoundly when I’m gone,” Carne says, who aside from his position with We Are Scientists, plays on other artists’ albums and songs. “I think about her very often on airport runways, especially flights when I’m the one leaving. This is why there are references to 37,000 feet, oblivion above the clouds, falling and, maybe most importantly, Delta airline wine… Hayley and I always talk about our moon-connection when I’m gone – about how we can connect with one another simply by looking at the moon when we’re apart. Just the act of looking for it brings me great comfort because it brings her to mind.”
Yes, that’s right. Delta airline wine made the cut. Romance is alive.
If “Look For The Moon” is the emotional nucleus, Magenta Light is the orbit. Across eight melancholic pop tracks stitched together with expansive, transcendent passages, Carne slides from ethereal drift to propulsive rhythm without losing the indie-pop backbone that anchors it all.
And the title? It’s not metaphorical, it’s psychedelic.
“I named the album for a psychedelic vision my wife had – she saw sparkling, magenta light pouring from my face,” Carne explains. “I began recording the ideas in my head the very next day with this vision in mind. “It’s inspired in equal parts by Pharoah Sanders’s explosive spiritual jazz and Fred Again’s catchy dance anthems. Its implications are both interpersonal and extraterrestrial.”
Interpersonal and extraterrestrial. Casual.
Carne recorded every note in his Midtown Manhattan studio, literally bathed in magenta light from an LED lamp gifted by Youngs after her vision. While known primarily as a drummer, he handles most of the instrumentation here – songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist. The guy studied song structure from behind the kit for over a decade. Turns out, he was paying attention.
“Drumming in a band is like conducting an orchestra from the back of the bandstand,” he says. “That’s why a drummer-led ensemble doesn’t feel like too much of a creative leap.”
Fair point.
Magenta Light moves from groove-heavy existential drift in “Totally Liminal” to the protective burn of “Keep Away,” the airy clarity of “37 Hours,” and the natural wonder threading through “Mist Trail” and “The Falls.” It explores connection, dislocation, transient spaces, and the forces that keep us tethered when everything else feels airborne.
The album was written, recorded, produced, and performed by Carne, with additional contributions from Brian Bond (Gem County), Justin “Bestamo” Gaynor (Gem County / Keith and Bestamo), Zeno Pittarelli, and Drew Citron (Beverly). Bond handled mixing, Pittarelli mastered the record, and the cover artwork was created by Hayley Youngs with design by Benedict Kupstas (Field Guides).
Magenta Light Tracklist:
1. Totally Liminal
2. Keep Away
3. 36 & Counting
4. 37 Hours
5. Contortionist Jazz Exotica
6. Look For The Moon
7. Mist Trail
This isn’t a side project tossed together between tours. It’s a deliberate pivot… not away from We Are Scientists, but toward something more personal.
If being 37,000 feet above the earth can make love feel closer, Magenta Light is proof that stepping out front doesn’t mean leaving anything behind.
“Look For The Moon” is out now on all streaming platforms. Magenta Light arrives April 20, 2026.
Look up.
KEITH CARNE ONLINE:
https://www.instagram.com/kcarneage
