A threnody for Bu Hanan.

From late 2004 until mid-2006, I thought Chapel Hill's Bu Hanan collective would save music (or something). But then the websites went dormant, the records stopped pouring out, and the shows slowed down. By the time things started picking up again in the last year or so, the songwriters and musicians had spread out over the country to the point where it's not much of a collective anymore. Grayson Currin has the story in the Independent Weekly.

“‘There's this series of dominos that are all facing each other, and if you can get one of them to fall, the other ones will fall with greater ease,’ Wright told the Independent in 2007 for a cover story about the collective on the eve of Daniels' first album on Fat Cat, Sharp Teeth. ‘I think they're falling.’

“Instead, it was Bu Hanan that was falling apart. Writer's block crippled Wright as he tried to pen Prayers and Tears' follow-up. Hart began touring as a multi-instrumentalist with bands like The Polyphonic Spree, and he was rarely at home to collaborate. Daniels, who'd made Sharp Teeth with everyone's advice and two-dozen collaborators, began working on its follow-up in isolation. Bu Hanan's once-close collaborators became mere artistic acquaintances, old friends growing apart.”

Sad stuff. But here's hoping for more great albums from David Karsten Daniels, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, The Physics of Meaning, and Kapow! Music, along with a little bit of sadness that they're working seperately now.