Rusalnaia is about honouring (some would say placating) the Rusalki - mischievous water nymphs capable of tickling victims to death - with song, dance, tree-decorating and wreath-making. Rusalnaia is what happened when Sharron Kraus and Gillian Chadwick, then neighbours in Fishtown, Philadelphia, became friends and decided to honour the Rusalki in each other! The two, coming from very different musical backgrounds, made journeys into each other's terrain until it was no longer clear what the boundaries were. In the collaborative process they became as close as sisters and found their way to the shared musical aesthetic that is Rusalnaia.

Rusalnaia's album was recorded at Hexham Head Studios in Philadelphia, engineered by Greg Weeks (Espers, The Valerie Project) in two sessions through 2007 that corresponded with Sharron's extended visits to the country. Weeks helped capture the duo's organic and sometimes unusual instrumentation, from dulcimer and guitar to pennywhistles and goat's nail shakers, and contributed his own accents to a few tracks: acid Les Paul leads and vintage 70's synths. Eight tracks of haunting, ritualistic, magical pagan-folk were the result, varying from the darkly processional tale of dispossession "Shifting Sands", though the Comus-like ceremonies of the title track to the extended forest-folk trance of the concluding "Wild Summer".

Sharron Kraus is a singer/musician/songwriter who creates music rooted in the folk traditions of England and Appalachia. Her first two solo albums were released on Camera Obscura to critical acclaim and her third will be released on Durtro on March 10, 2008. She has worked with The Iditarod, Fursaxa, Meg Baird and Helena Espvall, and her most recent release was Right Wantonly A-Mumming, a collection of seasonal songs recorded with an eight-strong host of traditional English folk singers and musicians including Jon Boden, John Spiers, Ian Woods and Fay Hield.

Gillian Chadwick is the creative force behind Ex Reverie, whose debut glam-rock full-length, The Door into Summer, was released by Language of Stone (an imprint of Drag City) on Jan 22, 2008 in the US. In addition to Rusalnaia and Ex Reverie, she also plays lead guitar in the Philadelphia-based dance-prog outfit Golden Ball, and is one-half of the Black Sabbath-tinged duo Woodwose.