Includes unlimited streaming of Chants for Socialists
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 14 days
edition of 1000
Purchasable with gift card
£10GBPor more
Darren Hayman - single coloured vinyl
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
limited to 400 copies vinyl version of the new Darren Hayman album:
includes red vinyl Chants for Socialists, with lyric and essay booklet, in sleeve hand printed on William Morris's own Albion Press
Includes unlimited streaming of Chants for Socialists
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
deluxe handmade case in William Morris fabric (with Dubs for Socialists download)
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
package includes:
Chants For Socialists CD (with booklet)
download code for Dubs for Socialists
beautiful handmade CD case in a choice of William Morris fabrics
Includes unlimited streaming of Chants for Socialists
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
about
“May Day” is the first single to be taken from Darren Hayman’s powerful new collection of songs based based on William Morris's Chants for Socialists (due for release on wiaiwya on 2 February). Darren explains:
“Of all of Morris’s lyrics that I arranged May Day is the least concerned with the shackles or work or the socialist struggle.
May Day become know as International Workers Day shortly before the writing of these words so it’s tempting to assume that Morris was thinking more about the day as the ancient spring festival, a holiday to beckon in the first days of spring.
In much the same way I’ve treated the song as a workers’ holiday rather than a workers’ celebration. On my album of Morris lyrics I have dressed many of his words with a feint sorrow and ennui.
May Day however is the album’s true moment of optimism and it’s only pop song. I wanted to make the guitars chime and the singers’ soar.
For about three minutes I wanted it to seem like everything might be alright.”
The album Chants for Socialists was recorded at three of Morris’s homes; The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow (with a choir of left-leaning locals), Kelmscott House in Hammersmith (where they used the Albion press used by Morris to handprint the record sleeves) and Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire, (where Hayman played Morris's own piano).
The result is a beautifully crafted album, lovingly produced with a team of enthusiastic helpers who lent their expertise and time, which will be made available to anyone who wants to listen, allowing people to pay what they can afford or what they think it’s worth. Chants for Socialists is an album of 19th century chants made relevant to the 21st century while staying true to many of William Morris’s ideals.
Indie pop is actually punk and exhibit A is the Particles, whose music gets a welcome reissue on Australian indie powerhouse Chapter Music. Bandcamp New & Notable May 4, 2023