Tommy Keene has died at the age of 59. He “passed unexpectedly and peacefully in his sleep” last night, according to a post on his official website. The Bethesda, Maryland-born power-pop and new wave songwriter released twelve albums over the course of his career, a run which started with his 1984 debut EP Places That Are Gone and extended to his most recent album, 2015’s Laugh In The Dark. He gathered a cult following in that time and admiration from his fellow musicians. Keene shared the stage with Paul Westerberg and Bob Pollard, and in 2006 he released a collaborative album with Pollard under the name the Keene Brothers. Most recently, he opened for Matthew Sweet on a tour that wrapped up this past September. In 2010, Keene’s career was memorialized in the compilation Tommy Keene You Hear Me: A Retrospective 1983-2009.