In their relatively brief lifetime, between 1996 and 2002, Hefner enjoyed an incredibly productive four-album, multi-EP career. Their beautiful, concise, intelligent songs earned a fiercely loyal, cult audience and the long-term support of legendary DJ John Peel, for whom they recorded innumerable sessions. Originally released in 2001, their final album, Dead Media, found Hefner reaching out and taking risks. Keen to break free of their indie-folk roots, they cocooned themselves in a home studio with broken analogue synthesizers, antique drum machines and battery-powered amplifiers. The band’s naivety and guile produced some curiously engaging music, with frontman Darren Hayman’s precise, economic, poetic dissections of quotidian romance draped over awkward, fuzzy beats: something like Cat Stevens covering Warm Leatherette. Dead Media caused confusion at the time and ultimately lead to the band’s break up. However, the songs like ‘Junk’, ‘The Night’s Are Long’ and ‘When The Angels Play Their Drum Machines’ are among Hayman’s most adult and affecting essays and stand out among the finest of Hefner’s achievements 1 Dead Media 2 Trouble Kid 3 Junk 4 When The Angels Play Their Drum Machines 5 Union Chapel Day 6 China Crisis 7 Alan Bean 8 Peppermint Taste 9 The Mangle 10 The King Of Summer 11 The Nights Are Long 12 Treacle 13 Half A Life 14 Waking Up To You 15 Home
Release date:
November 11, 2022
Install our app to receive notifications when new upcoming releases are added.

Recommended equipment and accessories
-
Audioengine A2 Plus
Precision-engineered 2.75-inch woofers and a 0.75-inch silk dome tweeter, featuring built-in DAC and Bluetooth connectivity for seamless integration.
-
Phono Preamps - Top Picks
A selection of the best phono preamps for your turntable setup
-
Nobsound Little Bear T7 Tube Preamp
Delivers rich, warm audio through its high-quality vacuum tubes, featuring multiple inputs and adjustable gain
-
Turntables - Top Picks
A selection of reliable record players you can buy today, for every budget
-
Nagaoka MP-110H Cartridge
Features a high-quality elliptical stylus that provides excellent tracking and minimizes distortion, delivering a detailed sound reproduction with an output voltage of 5.0 mV
Featured Upcoming Vinyl
-
Parcels Loved
Because Music
September 12, 2025 -
Wolf Alice The Clearing (Amazon Exclusive Edition)
Rca Records
August 29, 2025 -
Solak Atlas
Kuroneko
July 18, 2025 -
Hot Mulligan The Sound a Body Makes When It's Still (Sea Blue)
Wax Bodega
August 22, 2025 -
The Band CAMINO NeverAlways
Atlantic
July 25, 2025 -
Newton Faulkner OCTOPUS (White)
Cooking Vinyl
September 19, 2025 -
Various Artists Look at All the Love We Found: A Tribute to Sublime [3xLP]
Sublime Recordings
August 29, 2025 -
Olga Amelchenko Howling Silence
Edition Records Ltd
July 11, 2025 -
La Dispute No One Was Driving the Car (White/Red/Green) [2xLP]
Epitaph
September 5, 2025 -
Renee Rapp Bite Me
Interscope
August 1, 2025 -
Lyra Pramuk Hymnal
7K Records
June 27, 2025 -
Black Keys No Rain, No Flowers (Amazon Exclusive; Emerald Green)
Warner Records
August 8, 2025 -
Boneflower Reveries
Deathwish Inc
July 25, 2025 -
Black Honey Cult Black Honey Cult
Heavy Psych Sounds
July 4, 2025