Darren Hayman - The Ship’s Piano

Best known as the singer-songwriter of the phenomenally successful and much-loved Hefner, Darren Hayman is now six albums into an increasingly idiosyncratic career path; writing the theme tune and staring in a Spanish Sitcom, playing a 30 people capacity show in a 100 year old paper mache observatory and playing possibly Britiain’s most remote festival on the Isle of Eigg. Darren is also writing the best tunes of his career; increasingly complex and mature songs. Following his January Songs project Darren continues one of his busiest years with a brand new solo album of subtle, drifting piano ballads called The Ship’s Piano out in October and available as deluxe fold out card sleeve and on 12 inch vinyl. Throughout January 2011 Darren wrote and recorded a song every day as part of his January Songs project. Fortuna POP! will be releasing a 7” single from this project in September, called “I Know I Fucked Up/Who Hung The Monkey” which features Elizabeth Morris from Allo Darlin’ on one track and The Wave Pictures on the other. The whole lot will be compiled in a deluxe album of January Songs to be released in January 2012. June saw the reissue of Hefner’s Dead Media, with 20 extra tracks and Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern released The Green and the Grey with 16 Extra tracks from the Essex Arms sessions on a special low price CD and download. More info about The Ship’s Piano in Darren Hayman’s own words: “In November 2009, I had this thing happen to me, where I ended up in hospital with a fractured skull. For a few months I felt constantly dizzy and was diagnosed with some deafness in one ear. Sharp, loud noises bothered me greatly. I was told to rest and do nothing; but who knows how to do that? Music always helps when I’m ill, so I started to make the simplest, quietest music to help me recuperate. I tried to make the music that I wanted to hear, which is perhaps what we should always do, but in this case there was a direct therapeutic need. I avoided any jagged edges. I kept imagining the sounds I wanted as round and smooth, like well-worn pebbles. Lyrically, I also found myself eschewing conceptual and metaphoric character-led songs. I started to write the simplest and most direct words in the first person, something I have avoided for a few years. If you are a songwriter and something bad happens to you, people say, “You can write a song about it at least.” They mean well, but the big events in life have to seep out gradually with me and not in urgent, confessional bursts. The songs on this record are pleas for calm. As I get older I find I prefer small, quiet things.” All the songs were written on Darren’s ship’s piano. ‘Ship’s Piano’ is a colloquial term given to small-scale pianos that were used on boats. His was built in France in 1933 and folds away to resemble a sideboard. He wrote a song where he imagines its history. It’s called ‘The Ship’s Piano’.” Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern play on November the 3rd at the Scala London, as part of Fortuna POP!’s 15th birthday celebrations. “London's laureate of sexual dysfunction, discomfort, and dog-eared under-achievement... the match of Ray Davies, or any of the quintessentially English masters.” (The Guardian).

Tracklisting:

I Taught You How To Dance, Old House, Cuckoo, It’s Easy To Hang With You, Know Your Place, Take A Breather, Clown Sky, No Children, Oh Josephine, Think It Through, The Ship’s Piano

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