Chapel Hill songwriter David Karsten Daniels—a founding member of the Bu Hanan Collective that includes The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers and The Physics of Meaning—has signed to Brighton, England-based Fat Cat Records. Fat Cat is one of the more prestigous independent labels that boasts global distrubution: Daniels’ labelmates will include Mum, Sigur Ros, David Grubbs, Amandine and Vashti Bunyan.
In June, Daniels mailed a finished copy of his fourth album, Sharp Teeth, to the label, which, according to the demo section of its Web site, listens and replies to everything it receives.
“They seem to be more on top of it than anyone I know. So I sent them one, and I probably got an e-mail from Dave Cawley [Fat Cat co-founder] a week later. Really fast, I was surprised,” Daniels told the Independent in an interview this morning. “We started talking, but they were pretty much in from the beginning.”
Daniels moved to Chapel Hill as part of the regretfully unnoticed Go Machine (they’re still on MySpace, at least). The band released an excellent EP, Look to The, in 2003, but it went on indefinite hiatus a year later. Luckily, most of the band’s members stuck together, slowly but steadily building Bu Hanan into the most artistically exciting musical cadre in the Triangle. Alex Lazara became the collective’s primary producer, while Daniels played bass and guitar and Daniel Hart played violin with most of the its projects. The label signed Kapow! Music in 2004, but things really began to pickup when indie tastemaker Pitchfork Media reviewed The Prayers and Tears’ full-length debut with a more-than-respectable 7.5. Tours with Durham pal(s) The Mountain Goats followed. The Physics of Meaning, the big-band project of Hart, followed that with an excellent eponymous debut.
Throghout, label interest has been strong, but the collective took its time and waited for the right deal. With Fat Cat, Daniels hopes to have found such a situation, and he feels that, with this deal, he can help raise the entire Bu Hanan label to a new level.
“Actually, for Bu Hanan Collective, I feel it’s very much my burden to bear,” says Daniels, asked if he thinks signing will help raise awareness for the work Bu Hanan is doing. “I mean it’s a total crapshoot, I think. Kapow! Music, The Prayers and Tears, The Physics of Meaning: These are all really strong projects, great songs, stellar production. The new recordings will really show this.”
Daniels and The Prayers and Tears will hit the East Coast together later this fall, and Daniels plans to tour the rest of the country and Europe when Fat Cat releases Sharp Teeth early next year.
“I would love to think that 2007 could be the year I stop temping at UNC, but I’m not counting on it,” says Daniels. “I’m always amazed to hear about dudes I figure are doing it for living—with acclaimed albums, etc.—that still have day jobs or at least had them until very recently.”
To hear two songs from Sharp Teeth, see Daniels’ MySpace. If you’re wondering why Fat Cat signed a guy from Chapel Hill, “Jesus and the Devil” should answer your question. That song is just devastating.
it’s good to know there is another david karsten.
all the best bro.
Dave Karsten
Comment by David Karsten — October 3, 2007 @ 11:27 pm