Click for a larger image... Artist: Sharron Kraus
Release title:
Songs of Love and Loss
Catalogue number:
CAM0
65CD
Format:
CD in jewel case with 8 page booklet
Length:
13 tracks, 54:14 mins
Release date:
19 Mar 04
(US$15.00 shipped anywhere)

Sharron's second album, "Songs of Love and Loss", was recorded at home in Oxford and at Dungeon Studios in the Cotswolds and features Sharron's Oxford band: Jane Griffiths on fiddle and viola, Jon Fletcher on harmonica and occasional guitar, banjo and vocals, Colin Fletcher on bass; as well as BBC Folk Award-winning fiddler Jon Boden and Grammy-nominated early music violinist Giles Lewin. The album was finished in Providence and mixed with Jeffrey Alexander (The Iditarod, Black Forest/Black Sea). 

"
Songs of Love and Loss" is a natural follow-up to "Beautiful Twisted", in places darker and more discordant, in others gentler and sweeter. The lineage back to UK 60s folk artists Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins is stronger than ever, no more so than on the opening track "Gallows Song/Gallows Hill" where an original composition is seamlessly integrated into a traditional piece. This is not surprising since Sharron can easily switch between traditional balladeering at folk sessions and her role as an integral part of the Fishtown underground folk scene in Philadelphia along with Espers, Jack Rose, Fursaxa and Scorces. (Trivia note: her house was featured in a March 2004 feature on the scene in influential UK magazine The Wire.)

Sharron's peerless instrumental, vocal, songwriting and arranging skills, and her ability to balance the traditional and the avant-garde, places her alongside only a handful of other musicians operating today - Martyn Bates and David Tibet come to mind.

Other resources:

An MP3 from this release can be found on this page

CAM050CD - "Beautiful Twisted"


Sharron Kraus Web Site
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