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When Darren Hayman made his debut in 1997 with the acclaimed indie band Hefner his lyrical remit was the broken hearted. His early songs told the story of the lonesome and lost, and broken dreams of love on the back streets of London. After Hefner, Hayman’s palette grew to include a unique take on place and memory. In the early 2000s he wrote a trilogy of albums around the history of Essex.
In 2012 he made an instrumental album describing the tranquillity of Lidos. In 2016 Darren was awarded ‘Hardest Working Musician’ by the Association of Independent Music for his epic project on Thankful Villages, the 55 villages that survived the Great War with no casualties. His most recent record, 12 Astronauts, tells the personal story of the only men to have walked on the Moon. Darren is continually obsessed with the idea of what songs can be, and the stories they can tell.
As he explains, “With projects like Thankful Villages, I became interested in what a record could be, using field recordings, interviews and songs to make sound collages. I wanted to return to the stricter art of song writing and try and make the twelve best compositions I could. I wanted to make useful songs, words that could be comfort, not just thoughts that would depress.”
// "bold and unique" The Sunday Times // "Its delicately observed song cycle unfolds like a novella or short film, with tracks that might seem slight in isloation gaining resonance in situ." Q // “Bugbears is a rich and warming curio, and there’s something quietly noble about Hayman dragging the thoughts of these long-dead writers back into the light.” Mojo // “uniquely intimate and very satisfying” - BBC // “Hayman has hit a creative purple patch… a treat”. Mojo
Tracklist
A1) How It Could Be
A2) You Were My Map
A3) Don’t Haunt Me
A4) A Real Human Being
A5) Let’s Drift
A6) Love Is Through
B1) Otium
B2) A Room Within A Room
B3) No Lime For The Gin
B4) The Safest Way
B5) Turn My Grey Tick Blue
B6) Feel Like This Every Night
C1) Girls Who Look Like You
C2) Here’s The Stillness
C3) Loser Run
C4) Say You Want To Be Alone
C5) We Are Repaired
C6) Easter Gold
D1) Actually I Still Really, Really Miss You
D2) Holiday Eyes
D3) Where Were You
D4) Adverse Camber
D5) I Am Owned
D6) You Were Always Here