Hefner

It was during 1992 that British urban-folk trio Hefner first formed, after singer and guitarist Darren Hayman crossed paths with drummer Antony Harding at an art school in Kent. Following their 1994 relocation to London, bassist John Morrison joined the lineup, and the three cut their debut single “Another Better Friend” in 1996 after rehearsing together only once. Underground acclaim quickly followed, prompting a late-1997 signing with the storied Too Pure imprint and the release, the next spring, of the limited-edition 10-inch The Hefner Soul.

A warmly received single, “Pull Yourself Together,” paved the way for the full-length Breaking God’s Heart in mid-1998, with The Fidelity Wars appearing the subsequent year. With the arrival of the new millennium came a shift to Beggars Banquet; after the strong reception accorded the singles anthology Boxing Hefner, the band delivered We Love the City in October 2000.

Dead Media surfaced a year afterward, introducing a lo-fi electronic aesthetic. Disappointed by the album’s tepid reception, the members chose to disband soon after its release. Hayman and Morrison promptly launched a new project, the French, and pursued that same electronic bent on 2003’s Local Information. Hayman later embarked on a solo career and assembled Darren Hayman & the Secondary Modern. The group’s history reached its close with the 2006 Catfight compilation, a two-disc set of unreleased recordings that encompassed an entire album’s worth of material tracked after Dead Media.