Jeffrey Lewis is one of my favorite artists – I wrote about him too many times by now, so there is no point in me explaining again why he's such a superior singer / songwriter. All there is to know is that he is amazing, and now, after watching him on BBC's "The Culture Show", I understand that I'm not alone.

If you are not convinced, listen to the man Jarvis Cocker, who, as I learned from "The Culture Show", thinks Lewis is the best lyricist working in the USA today.

Check out the video and let me know if you agree.

After Hefner broke up, Darren Haymen did a lot of forgetable things. But now he's back - sharp, witty and charming as ever. It’s probably because he is kinda doing Hefner songs again.

Let me start off with an off-topic explanation – I know that lately we haven’t been updating the music blog as much as we used to. I’m sorry about that. But let me assure you that soon enough we will be right back on track! What can we say? 8hands is growing, and you can expect a lot of surprises from us in the near future – site wise and app wise. Things will just get better round here! Now, let’s start talking about da man, Darren Hayman.

Most of you will probably know Darren Hayman from the astonishing work that he did while he was the lead singer of Hefner. If you ever heard anything by Hefner, you probably fell in love with Hayman’s endless geeky charm, his perfect voice, and of course, his way with words. He had this magical ability to deliver purely cynical thoughts, without a trace of anger or bitterness.

But not everything about Hefner was perfect. They had three brilliant pop-folk-rock studio albums and a ton of b-sides before they have decided, like the rest of the world in those 2001 days, to try their luck with synths and electronics. They brought us ‘Dead Media’ – one hell of a boring album, and probably the cause of the Hefner’s threesome going their separate and unknown ways. The only one I’ve tried to follow was Darren Hayman.

At first he went to a project called The French – another electronic outfit, which released a decent album, but didn’t leave any real marker except from that one “Wu-Tang Clan” song (can’t find it to put it here legally for ya, but look for it or buy it. It’s an amzing song). Sadly, it kinda went down the hill from there.

Hayman started to put out lots of solo releases: eps, 7 inches, even an album – alone, all by himself, recorded at home without a backing band. That’s when I got it! Apparently, Hayman isn’t the bedroom-singer-songwriter we thought he was. When he was alone, the songs didn’t sound right, too much was missing. Around the beginning of 2006, I’d lost hope and stopped trying. I thought to myself, “We will always have Hefner”, and popped ‘The Fidelity Wars’ in the stereo. Only god knows what made me google Hayman’s name a few weeks ago.

I found out that by the end of 2007, Hayman released a new album, with a band! The band's name is Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern and the album’s title is just the same. And how is the music? Awesome! Haymen is back to guitars, back to what he does best, back to… doing Hefner!

I mean… I love electronics, and I appreciate it when musicians try out new stuff. I really do. But when it comes to Hayman, I just want him to deliver those great lyrics over some beautiful catchy and melodically soft rockn’roll, and that is exactly what happens in Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern. So, if you ever had a soft place in your heart for Hefner (and I assume you did, after all, you are not robots!) you will love this new album. Just trust me on this one.

This time, Alon picks his one true album of the year, "It’s A Bit Complicated" by Art Brut.

Let’s face it – this year has produced some great musical moments, but it didn’t show us a lot of really unique, one-of-kind, innovative moments. Most of the good albums that came out just took great music and made it better – Animal Collective, Jens Lekman, LCD Soundsystem, Mendoza Line, Devin the Dude, Tullycraft & Justice – Sure, they all had awesome releases, but you’ve got to admit that none of it was much of a surprise. I mean, we all knew that James Murphy is a brilliant man and Animal Collecitve have been getting hotter and wiser by the minute! Where can we find a new music movement? What is the next big genre? Where are all the shocking findings? They are all probably hiding somewhere in 2008.

But there was one thing that did make me go “wow” and, metaphorically speaking only, take my clothes off, paint myself red and run through the streets yelling out weird animal noises. It was “It’s A Bit Complicated” by Art Brut, a record that just like the ones I mentioned above, is made up of some great music that we have heard before – poppy guitar driven post punk, with a lot of fun making wooo-ahhhh in it. The difference in this album is the lyrics – damn! Eddie Argos, the lead singer, is the poet of the century, and don’t let anyone tell you anything else!

On Art Brut’s first album, “Bang Bang Rock And Roll”, we were all amazed by Argos’ wittiness, but we were still convinced that he is nothing less then a joke-man, the class clown. On this year’s album, Eddie shows new depth to his soul. He is still funny, can still charm with a short line, and there is no doubt that he is the smartest man behind the mic today.

He talks about music, his childhood, his relationships, his friends and popular culture and he does it so well, that he makes all the old fashioned lyricists look nothing less than ridiculous – especially when he gives them all a shout out and sings: “River deep and mountain high / there's some lyrics that'll never apply / 'cause I don't lie awake at night / with thoughts of river depth or mountain height” – In their face Eddie!