It is nice to hear someone who is so determinedly out of step with modernity. Indeed it seems something of a surprise that she has engaged with the modern world enough to have a website.
Sharron Kraus – The Fox’s Wedding
http://www.sharronkraus.com/ www.myspace.com/sharronkraus http://www.konkurrent.nl/
It is indicative that the credits to The Fox’s Wedding note that Toss These Oaken Ashes was composed by Thomas Campion, who died in 1620. Kraus appears to be a woman out of time – hers is a world of pre-industrialisation, of itinerant poets and wandering minstrels. She isn’t completely stuck in the 16th and 17th centuries (she does utilise accordion, an instrument that wasn’t invented until 1822) but for the most part she draws on long-lost traditions of folk. The Campion composition fits naturally into the eleven original songs also represented, her material feels authentically arcane – a rural reminder of rustic romanticism.
Kraus has a rich, earthy voice (reminiscent of a young Joan Baez) that marries perfectly to the style and content of her song-craft. This is married to fine work on the banjo and (needless to say, acoustic) guitar. This is a gracious album of quiet melancholy which (as is the wont of proper folk music) deals with love, death and obsession.
It is hard to pick out a standout track, which signals the one flaw to the album. Individually the songs are glorious; soothing and haunting in equal measure. Taken together as a whole, the album fails to hold interest to the end. However it is nice to hear someone who is so determinedly out of step with modernity. Indeed it seems something of a surprise that she has engaged with the modern world enough to have a website.
Words: Stuart Crosse