TV Obsessive
The Haunting Return of Hannah Fury
Rachel: In the early 2000s, I discovered Hannah Fury’s music through a LiveJournal friend’s recommendation. It of course sent me spinning down the rabbit hole of dark cabaret artists and I began listening to the likes of The Dresden Dolls or more classically tinged Rasputina, among others.
Fury’s work feels somewhere between the edge of those artists, but more often aligns more closely with Kate Bush because of her ethereal vocals and literary inspired works. While she was never signed to a major label (and she self-released all her music and hand-made her merch), she had a strong fanbase in those early years, which culminated with her 2007 full-length album, Through the Gash.
Then Fury went quiet. I’d check in around all the usual places—her website, Bandcamp, or blog—but nothing. Then in 2015, she wrote about being in a near-fatal car wreck. This year—2020—has been cruel to almost everyone I know, so I was amazed to see a notification from her Facebook page. She shared the sad news of her husband’s passing from cancer and what she’s been through mentally since, and on the other side of that was music. She just released 22 new songs on her Bandcamp, sectioned out into collections of both full-length albums and EPs.
I’m slowly working my way through all the tracks. Hearing her music again feels like running into an old friend on the street who sat next to you in some college class. The details are fuzzy, but the feeling remains. These songs are full of love, loss, and hope. Thank you, Hannah, for sharing your art with us again, after everything else.
