Artist: Darren Hayman
Title: Home Time
Format: 12” black vinyl and digipack CD
Cat#: Fika079LP | Fika079CD
Release date: 22nd May 2020
Bandcamp | Spotify
Darren Hayman returns with the new album Home Time, due out in June via Fika Recordings. An autobiographical album about break ups, the record is tender, honest and frequently funny. Darren set an 8 track, acoustic rule for the record. Everything sounds warm, close and intimate. Darren’s own love-worn, London voice is joined on every song by the sweet antipodean tones of Hannah Winter and Laura K, recording artists and songwriters themselves with Common or Garden and Fortitude Valley.
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.”
The songs for Home Time were written over a three-year period but recorded quickly, and with love, in Darren’s home. Home Time is a fragile, subtle slice of prettiness. Wrap it around you.
Three digital singles will be released; ‘I Tried and I Tried and I Failed’, a song about the endless, circular nature of being human, ‘I Was Thinking About You’, a song about the uncontrollable nature of memory and how it continues to haunt us even when we consider the long buried, and ‘The Joint Account’, about how when trying to negotiate matters of the heart and mind, it is sometimes the physical objects that anchor us down in the mire.
A baby sister album I Can Travel Through Time with ten one-minute songs squeezed on a seven inch is coming out alongside it on the Formosa Punk label.
“Twenty-one years ago Hefner released one of the finest break-up and make-up albums of its era. To say that Hayman has done it again may be a bit reductive – in no sense at all is this a nostalgia trip, quite the opposite in fact – but nonetheless, this is one of the finest records of a consistently brilliant and varied solo career.” Folk Radio
“Sometimes you need to hear about someone else's problems to make you feel better about your own, and Hayman is especially good at that, leaving you humming in the process.” Brooklyn Vegan
“Hayman’s lyrics have always been unmistakable, with his narrative style and unabashed love of rhymes. If you liked Hefner, you will enjoy the return to their style on Home Time, which is engaging, touching and often funny.” The Quietus
“Hefner fans are going to be right at home here. But they should also appreciate a songwriter who has learned much over the past two decades – about his craft as a songwriter, and about himself as a performer.” For Folks Sake
“Delightful, delicate and poignantly relevant” Narc Magazine [4/5]
“The delights of Home Again is that Hayman sings about emotions that are easy to identify with but sometimes hard to articulate” Music OMH [4/5]
“An audibly beautiful listen, which has sad and comical aspects to it, Home Time is a great journey of a record.” The Fountain
“The playful, earnest indie pop that Hayman has built his career around is in full evidence on upbeat cuts like "I Was Thinking About You" and "I Tried and I Tried and I Failed," which ring with jaunty mandolin leads and sweet harmonies courtesy of collaborators Hannah Winter and Laura Kovic.” All Music [3/5]
“playful, charming and endearing” Americana UK
“full of literate, strummed indie songs enhanced by female backing vocals and a small ensemble that includes mandolin and violin. Thoughtful, wordy numbers such as “Because We Were Impossible” and the sweet Nikki Sudden-ish “The Joint Account” draw the listener in like a good book” The Arts Desk
“As with much of Home Time, The Joint Account feels both tender and achingly honest, it walks the lines of practicality and emotion, working its way through the pain and emerging, stumbling out the other side. This is Darren coming home to the songwriting that first found his fame, he’s a touch older, a touch wiser, and just as compelling as ever.” For The Rabbits
“'I Tried And I Tried And I Failed' is a key component of the album, with its gentle ruminations taking on a subtly meditative quality. Darren Hayman's indie pop roots shine through, with his melodic turn of phrase matched to a desire for originality that has only increased over time.” Clash Music premiere
“this playful little single. The track revolves around two lyrical lines, and that’s it; still, the thematic element kind of encourages you to get up and try and try again, no matter what the outcome…that seems to be the nature of all our lives, making sense of our failures” Austin Town Hall
