Impossible Times – Darren Hayman and the L from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.
Now, are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin… Once again The Quietus salutes Mr Darren Hayman, for he does indie, and he does it properly, the way we like it: intelligent, twisted, a little dark, rather odd, using a colourful piece of the present to illuminate the past. Following hard on the heels (like a mad bastard Catholic waving a ducking stool) of his recent brilliant tribute to the British lido comes a new album (with band The Long Parliament) about the witch panic that swept East Anglia in centuries past. The record is called The Violence and we’re told that: "Between 1644 and 1646, approximately 300 women were executed for witchcraft in the eastern counties of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. The album deals with fear and isolation, the way we use our own terror in times of trouble to lash out at the weak. It’s about how societies persecute otherness and outsiders." You can watch the video for ‘Impossible Times’ above.
Of the track itself, we’re told that" ‘Impossible Times’ is about how every generation tends to think of itself as being at the nadir of history. The end of the world has been just around the corner for centuries. The British of 1645 had more reason to believe this than most. It’s about how violence frightens us and how fear just leads to greater violence."
