Sean Carey (2022)

Sean Carey's music often evokes the comforts of home, so it only makes sense that he'd gravitate to the quiet confines of a modest kitchen in his hometown of Eau Claire, Wis. This is a Tiny Desk (home) concert in the truest sense: S. Carey performs these four songs surrounded by household appliances and a handful of his closest collaborators. Carey's fourth solo album, Break Me Open, lends itself perfectly to confined intimacy. The record came out of an intense stretch of Carey's life in which the singer got divorced, lost his father and embarked on a period of deep introspection. But it's a record about growth as well as grief. Of course, Carey had a clear musical path to follow, given that he joined Bon Iver shortly after bandleader Justin Vernon wrote his own masterful breakup album, For Emma, Forever Ago. Now, more than a decade later, he's the one healing amid the snows of western Wisconsin, just in time for the spring thaw.