darren hayman
Darren Hayman reissues “The Violence,” the double album he calls the most ambitious work of his thirty-year career. First released in 2012 and recorded with his sixteen-piece ensemble The Long Parliament, it closes his Essex Trilogy with songs about the 17th-century East Anglian witch trials and the English Civil Wars, now expanded with previously unreleased tracks and demos.
Originally released in 2008 and now reissued with two bonus covers, Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee — the quartet of Darren Hayman, David Watkins, Dan Mayfield and David Tattersall — is an absolute joy to rediscover. East London bluegrass played with close-knit, co-operative DIY warmth: witty, lovelorn originals and artfully chosen covers. Think The Basement Tapes with more banjos.
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.
