Sharron Kraus' 'Friends and Enemies; Lovers and Strangers'
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12" LP, 500 numbered copies, reverse board mat cover, with fully illustrated booklet, and download code.
Sharron
Kraus makes her debut on Clay Pipe Music with a collection of songs
inspired by the Welsh folk tales of The Mabinogi. The idea for the
album was first realised while she was living in rural Mid Wales.
“I
started off writing the songs as a way of getting to grips with what
was happening in the stories” She
says,
“Trying to understand things that at first seemed confusing to me,
and quickly got sucked in to a strange and wonderful world. I fell in
love with these stories whilst being mystified by them and the
process of wrestling them into song form has been one of the most
challenging and rewarding of my song writing projects to date.”
The
stories collected in The Four Branches of The Mabinogi were written
in the 11th Century but contain themes that remain relevant today:
love and hatred; battles for power; loss, displacement and migration
of peoples; magic and wonder.
The
album is full of beautiful crystal clear melodies that enhance the
intrigue of the tales Sharron is telling. Using harp, recorders and
bowed dulcimer, as well as guitar and piano the songs manage to
capture the atmosphere of the time and take the listener back to the
magical places mentioned in the stories.
Sharron
Kraus is
a UK-based singer, musician and songwriter whose music though
informed by the folk traditions of England and Appalachia has its own
distinctive voice. Heralded as one of the strongest voices in English
contemporary folk. She has recorded a collection of traditional folk
songs, Leaves
From Off the Tree,
with Meg Baird and Helena Espvall of Philadelphia psych folk band
Espers, but the majority of her work is self-authored.
Sharron
has been featured in The Wire, Rolling Stone, fRoots, Uncut, The
Sound Projector and Dirty Linen, and is one of the musicians focussed
on in Jeanette Leech's Seasons
They Change: The Story of Acid, Psych and Experimental Folk.
She has appeared on Radio 3's 'The Verb', and recorded sessions for
BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio Shropshire, Freakzone on Radio 6, and
independent radio stations across the US.
Sharron
Kraus: vocals, guitar, recorders, bowed dulcimer, organ, percussion
Harriet Earis: harp
Harriet Earis: harp
Nancy
Wallace: vocals
Nick
Palmer: piano
