John Carroll Kirby Announces Solo Album

John Carroll Kirby, the Los Angeles-based keyboardist, composer, and producer, just released the second single off his upcoming solo project “Piano Works 2016-2026”, due August 28th on Stones Throw Records. The album collects 14 impromptu pieces, composed and recorded whenever he had the opportunity to sit at a piano while on tour. The pieces on the album were recorded in London, Tokyo, Rome, Los Angeles, Wollongong, and rural New Zealand, some of which were recovered from emails and unnamed folders after Kirby lost his home and hard drives in the 2025 Eaton Fire in Altadena, LA. John calls them “a record of my off-time over the years where I’m at a piano and try to compose some piano music, really as an exercise. They were almost always written in the context of ‘I will only be at this piano for a day or two, what can I put down?’ Most of the pieces have an impromptu feel. Very improvised, or meant to sound improvised, or at least written in one sitting.”

“Valentino”, the second single off the album, was written a long time ago. “I always liked the chords. When I played it live, people always reacted to it, so I recorded it in a cabin in rural New Zealand last year.” It’s a sweet composition with a classical touch and was just added to our weekly playlist. About the album, John adds that “it’s a study in piano repertoire: Baroque, Romantic, Impressionist, jazz, minimalist, atonal, etc. The pieces serve as the melodic / harmonic lexicon for what would inform all my other compositions of the past ten years.” Listen to “Valentino” and pre-order the album on John’s Bandcamp site.