brookelen is Ready to Come Out of Hiding
brookelen, photo by Emily Krisky
brookelen is carving out her own cathartic corner of indie rock—and coming home to herself in the process. The solo project of Los Angeles-based vocalist and guitarist Brooke McKnight blends orchestral embellishments with fuzzed-out guitars, confessional lyricism, dense arrangements and emotionally charged vocals. For brookelen, the darkness isn’t a destination, but a pathway into the light.
That path begins with “hide,” the first preview of her forthcoming six-track EP, dark side of the sun, out October 23 via Soliloquy Records. Introducing brookelen’s most unflinching and collaborative sound to date, the guitar-driven single introduces the EP’s preoccupation with what McKnight has tried to suppress, and the difficult work that goes into bringing it into view.
“This EP was recorded live and loud,” McKnight says. “I feel like [it] really reflected what was happening in a live performance setting that I wanted to capture and put out into the universe.”
brookelen has simultaneously operated as a band for the past two years, with McKnight performing their solo music alongside Ben Kinzer (cello and guitar), Gil Young (drums), and Alex Rashad (bass). dark side of the sun marks the first EP all four musicians have recorded together, expanding brookelen into a fuller sonic plane and creating a connection especially visible in the video for “hide,” which McKnight describes as a turning point for the group.
Born from meditating on her inner world, dark side of the sun considers McKnight’s experiences growing up and growing into herself. Across the EP, she returns to images of shadow and light, heaven and hell, omens and skepticism. The six-track record holds those oppositions in the perspective of someone learning to sit with every part of themself. This outlook allows contradiction, doubt and darkness to coexist with the possibility of repair.
Raised around Southern Baptist Christianity, McKnight says she hasn’t always found herself reflected in the religious framework she inherited, but instead allows that upbringing to fuel the stories and symbols that have remained with her. References to reconciliation, revelation, demonic presences, and heaven and hell become ways to identify what has been buried rather than leave it all unattended.
Official music video for “hide”
“hide” is really about the light that comes from revealing things that we keep hidden within ourselves,” they say. “Demons hate the light, and to me, that light is truth. It comes from a confessional lyrical point, so it was fun to put out a song about honesty that sounds really grungy.”
The single’s crunchy, angular guitars and underlying orchestration frame McKnight’s low, grounded vocal register, lending urgency to the song’s exorcism metaphor. McKnight initially drafted the song under the working title “demon,” using exorcism as a metaphor for recurring patterns and the inner struggle to face them. After revisiting the lyrics, “hide” seemed a better fit as it named the perfectionistic impulse to disguise parts of herself she had deemed unworthy. The first verse reveals a confession sparked by the ways in which self-sabotaging tendencies make confrontation and control increasingly difficult: “Demon in my chest, you make it hard to swallow / What I want to put to rest, yet I follow / I fall low.” As the track builds, her voice grows more insistent around the plea to “let it go,” eventually unraveling as her raspy, raw vibrato spills into a guttural release as if her body could not contain being held inward anymore.
“We have equally confronting moments on it; this is definitely a loud, rocking single,” McKnight said. “That heavy sound kind of weaves through strings and quieter moments, and I think it’s one of the most fun ones to play live.”
The song blends cello and violin with dense, building arrangements paralleling its thematic contradictions, ultimately illustrating the genre-fluid way in which McKnight understands brookelen. She describes the project’s sound in a string of labels, mixing shoegaze, indie, folk, rock and emo rather than one fixed genre.
That fluidity also shapes the artists McKnight takes inspiration from, including Courtney Love, Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power and Stina Nordenstam, whose work she honors with a star tattoo. “It’s such a beautiful thing to feel so inspired, musically, of course, but through all these different things like spirituality, and how everything connects to who you are and what you want to do,” they said. “I don’t think I necessarily sound like the people that motivate me, but I channel what about their art moves me and then think about how I can show up for myself. One of the best realizations is knowing that you can be amazing just by being yourself and in how you show up, because nobody else can do that.”
Brookelen has become a haven where the sounds, symbols, and questions that have followed her through different stages of life can coexist without having to fit into a single version of herself. McKnight started out playing violin in her childhood, a foundational aspect that shows up in brookelen’s arrangements through cello, violin, and other orchestral touches. Later teaching herself the guitar, she began writing songs alone in her bedroom before bringing them to the stage at open-mic nights. The transition from solo songwriting to public performance set a dynamic that still shapes brookelen’s presence, with how tracks begin in personal, inward reflection, then expand through collaboration and vulnerable live settings.
McKnight shared, “I think the orchestra kid in me loves being a part of a band and playing with others. That is really how I picked up bass and got better at guitar. I love how good having a family of musicians feels to play with–it’s a magical place I wanted to be in for a long time, and this record feels like a manifestation of that coming together in the coolest way.”
Alongside Kinzer, Young and Rashad, recording dark side of the sun together for the first time preserves the immediacy of the record’s live performances while allowing the songs to take a larger shape. The EP marks a move toward trusting that the most personal material can also belong to rooms full of people.
Through dark side of the sun, brookelen refuses to turn away from the difficult, shameful parts of oneself that can feel impossible to name. Instead, McKnight brings them into the open, letting the process become louder, stranger, shared, and overall, heard.
