Si Hayden

Full Discography

• Spoilt for choice - Label: Silvery -2011
• The Perils the Grace and the Way - Label: Blatant-2011
• Mille Miglia - Label: Silvery -2010
• COUNTERFEIT - Label: Silvery -2010
• Sunrise - Label: Silvery -2010
• Waiting - Label: Silvery -2010
• Noel Nouvelet - Label: Sid Norris -2010
• Waiting Room - Label: Silvery -2010
• Swim on by - Label: Silvery -2010
• FdWN - Label: Silvery -2010
• This Mess - Label: Silvery -2010
• The Journey Live at Playwrights - Label: Silvery -2010
• Pianose - Label: Silvery -2010
• Mainly Blue - Label: Silvery -
• Live in '05 at the Coventry Jazz Festival - Label: Silvery -2010
• 'UNCORKeD' Live at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival - Label: Silvery -2010
• Noble England - Label: Motivation -2010
• The Mysteries - Label: Silvery -2010
• Step Forwards - Label: Silvery -2009
• SABACA - Label: Silvery -2009
• Welcome to Suburbia - Label: Force 8 -2009
• The apparent rules of thumb - Label: Silvery -2009
• Trust Again - Label: Silvery -2009
• BACKRA MeN - Label: Silvery -2008
• Scenes from the City - Label: Silvery -2008
• Live like us - Label: Silvery -2007
• The Alchemist Vol II - Label: Liquid Note-2007
• FMN2 Concert for Pete - Label: Penny Brohn-2007
• Steel Roots - Label: Silvery -2007
• Dark Clouds Fighting - Label: Blatant -2006
• Nylon... For Now - Label: Silvery -2006
• Bring on the life - Label: Unreleased -1999
• Steel Happenings - Label: RayCra -1998

Film/DVD

Dockers
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Soundtrack
Chosen
Belgrade Theatre Production (2009): Soundtrack
Big School
Belgrade Theatre Production (2010): Soundtrack

Radio

Tonight I Write
BBC Radio 4 play by Manjinder Virk '2003' (Composed track 'Barcelona')

Theatre

Live Like Us
Belgrade Theatre Production (2007): Soundtrack
Scenes from the City
Belgrade Theatre Production (2007): Soundtrack
The first time I saw snow
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Actor, Live Soundtrack
Now you see me, now you dont
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Actor, Live Soundtrack
The Mystery Plays 'In our own words'
Belgrade Theatre Production (2009): soundtrack
Immigration 'In our own words'
Belgrade Theatre Production (2010): soundtrack

All the moves
Belgrade Theatre Production (2010): soundtrack

All Album Reviews

.."It's really nice to hear new music with real musicians, I do a lot of programmed music, but there is something organic about poetry and well tuned musicians. And Si's work is just great, the double bass playing is spot on... it really sounds like the musicians overstood the poetry. Nice one."(Performance Poet Benjamin Zephaniah)

.."its a ripper cd... very, very good!"
(Steve Passiouras, PBS FM)

.."Hayden is a very acomplished guitarist, with a good range of styles and moods."(fROOTS Magazine)

.."..a wonderfull guitar player, I've been enjoying this cd.."(Steve Passiouras, PBS FM Australia)

.."Si Hayden with Michael Berk deliver an acoustic pearl called Tango Schizophrenia"(Dmitry M. Epstein, Let it Rock)

.."gives a fine display of Americana.. and there is some finger lickin’ pickin’ going on here.."(Is this music magazine)

.."‘Backra Man’ by Morley Hayden Haines has certainly came in from the left-field... no doubt there will be people who appreciate whats going on here..."(Andy Reilly - Is this music)

.."fast killer chops on most tracks.. "Moondance".. a true piece of art.. at times he reminds me of Tuck Andress in his jazzy approach with a lot of rhythm and bass runs going on" ('Bridge Guitar Reviews)

.."a lot of jazz influence... walking bass lines, tapping, ..blazing scale work... great bluesy... funky groove, jazz chording's, some Spanish guitar flourishes, and lots of quick arpeggios... Si does have some chops..."(©Kirk Albrecht, minor7th)

.."Hayden’s trademark supersonic picking is present.. the six-string virtuosity shown on this album is irrefutable.. an album that stuns with its technical brilliance, then later endears you to the soul and depth behind the flashiness"(Peter Clayton, cdreviews)

.."The album then takes on a the Spanish acoustic delights of “Tango Schizophrenia” from Si Hayden and Michael Berk is a great piece of 2 classical guitars with the right blend of mystical Mediterranean qualities and speedy fretwork in some of the solos and is another highlight, all this coming from gloomy Coventry in the UK! "(©2007 VIRTUOSITYONE)

.."solo guitar mastery of U.K. based Si Hayden... The music may sound vintage but on his CD Hayden puts a new spin on a timeless art form. As he points out in his liner notes, all tracks were recorded with one guitar and no overdubs and all percussion is from the right hand on the guitar body while playing. A modern flamenco master, Hayden makes excellent use of his Ivor Maraints and Jose Ramirez guitars."(Robert Silverstein, 20th Century Guitar)

.."This album is refreshingly honest - UK-based composer/guitarist Hayden plays the entire program solo and with no overdubs... flawlessly executes the genre's characteristic strums, descending single-string runs and soundboard taps... Yet he typically makes things more interesting by weaving more complex harmonies and smooth jazz elements into each of the tunes. Si Hayden's appeal comes from successfully melding flamenco with more modern sounds, and doing so without gimmicks or artifice. Both guitarists and general listeners will enjoy this CD; turn it up and enjoy."(©Patrick Ragains, Minor7th)

.."...such an impressive guitar player and Nylon ... for Now is full of interesting music... dizzying flamenco-style runs... pretty, ringing arpeggios. He’s even better when he leans into some meaty rhythmic chording. Then there’s his unique percussion, which is him tapping on the guitar’s wood body. I wish he’d do it more often on this album, but these tracks were recorded in single takes, and providing all that rhythm on top of breakneck picking is, I’m sure, hard work. Fans of guitar virtuosity should check out Si Hayden... a few listens made me appreciate it on a heart-and-soul level as well as a technical one."(©Chip Withrow, musesmuse)

.."About a year and a half ago, I reviewed Si Hayden’s Nylon … for Now. I was very impressed by his solo acoustic guitar virtuosity. I still am, and I like Steel Roots even more. Hayden is still firing off dizzying runs, punctuated by percussive slaps against his guitar. His chord work is full and propulsive. The 12 tracks here are concise, melodic, often rocking. Hayden delivers toe-tapping bluesy jazz (the original “Flat Spot” and his smoking take on Van Morrison’s “Moondance”), folk-country (the leap-out-of-the-speakers opener “Ellya” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”), Townshend-like power (“Hats Off to Pete Townshend” and “Just a Bit of Fun”) and flights of frenetic fancy (the dizzying “JD and Coffee” and the closing title cut). Hayden often deftly shifts genres several times within songs, and with only one track over four minutes long, Steel Roots delivers wallop after wallop of solo guitar goodness with no time for boredom to set in."(© Chip Withrow, musesmuse)

.."...You might find a methodology to Hayden's playing, but every composition is so tailored with its own voice that it negates everything you have ever learned about method playing. These are not finger moves that are taught in school. They are moves with such imagination and independent thinking that they make you feel honored to hear them. The music has a striking star quality that few artists can achieve. Hayden uses no special effects or overdubs. His playing is divinely pure... Hayden's music falls between the lines that separate jazz from country, and his compositions certainly show that the two have more common factors than most music fans ever knew. You'll never believe that all of these movements are coming out of one acoustic guitar. There is a dreamy quality in Si Hayden's melodies that keeps your head floating up above the clouds while the country aspects in his music keeps everything feeling open and homey... A native of Coventry, England, Hayden's sonic vistas seem to come natural as he plays to the beating pulse of life with total abandonment of conventional methodology. Speaking of unconventional, Si Hayden is left handed and plays right-handed guitars.(Susan Frances, jazzreview.com)

.."Poet laureate in waiting goes all the way to fusion and back - Ra: They're a rare breed, great poets crossing over to music, and with only a couple of names springing to mind, Jonathan Morley, an Eric Gregory Award winner who researches T. S. Elliot's stamp over Carribean literature at the University of Warwick, stands closer to Gil Scott-Heron rather than Leonard Cohen. His lines chime with jive, so Morley teams up with guitarist and composer Si Hayden and drummer Ben Haines to deliver them in style. Cue this album, a companion piece to "Backra Man" the book (note the singular as opposed to the plural in the record's title), a jazzy experience which starts creepingly with Hayden's piano rippling over Haines' shadowy cymbals and Morley's gloomy voice reciting strange images. It resonates on many levels when the "Da Da dada dada" sets alliteration apace in "For Lee Miller", spanky bass brings funk into the "Loki's song" Gothic texture, and baroque country picking paints the "grass glares white" picture of "Spon". The music feels as strange as the poems but one fits the other perfectly. "Backra" means the evil white man, and this fusion of poetry and sparse melodies seems sinister indeed, yet it's not aggressive at all, save for the Rasta talk of "Sistah" that sounds melodius even without ragged accompaniment, whereas the "Duskfall" lace is pure elegance and "Iberian Baroque" gently takes a listener on an Indiana Jone-like adventure to the Indian pyramids. That's where the whiter shade of face re-appears. Haunting!" ****(Dmitry M. Epstein, Let it Rock)