Twisted Road

PINTS FOR TRYING: "England has too strong a pull on me. It's the trees reaching out to me," says Sharron Kraus. "But beer is also a factor."

Fishtown folkie Sharron Kraus returns to her other homeland.

by A.D. Amorosi

folk

Despair, decline, isolation, death — these are the roads Sharron Kraus travels in her songs. Whether set within a traditional Gaelic folk vein or wound through creaking lo-drones, her mordant musings are devious, ominous and avenging. Songs like "Still" and "Murder of Crows" paint weighty black portraits that'd make Robert Motherwell seem pastel.

But is she funny?

"Fuck, yes. What could be funnier than getting it on with a swarm of bees?" exclaims Kraus from her cluttered blue Fishtown studio/bedroom.

So all that bleakness, is that really her? Or is she a great liar?

"I'm a terrible liar so you can be sure my lyrics are gospel truth," says Kraus. "If you've never despaired and come through to the other side, you're still a child. It's important to make that journey, to find beauty and joy in the stark — to enjoy twisted old trees, to find love in the midst of war." There are seeds of happiness buried deep in her aching, careful words.

After next week, you'll only find those words on her CDs, Songs of Love and Loss and Beautiful Twisted. Kraus, den mother to a Terrastock-ian net of artists in her neighborhood, is going home to Britain. (Kraus was actually born in the Bronx, but was whisked to England before she could develop an accent or a criminal record.) Though she loves the community and close quarters she's found in her Fishtown "compound," she craves the isolation of hills and forests in the Oxfordshire countryside.

The tradition of that area's best-known women artists — Shirley Collins, June Tabor and Frankie Armstrong — has always haunted her work. Though her emotional soprano and spare arrangements of banjo, fiddles and such are inspired by those women, her lyrics are influenced by Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, men focused on intricate backgrounds and dire complex characterizations.

These songs are gently unsettling, a slow-acting poison. Still, there's an avenging heroism to her most murderous of murder ballads. "I think one strand of the stories I tell concerns characters who find meaning outside of or between the cracks of conventional society or morality," she says.

A song like "The Pale Prisoner" is the best example of this, one where its subject — a lady in the tower — is so fed up with being rescued, she lops off the heads of would-be liberators.

Blame her philosophy degree from Oxford University, one that found her writing her final thesis on meaningfulness before discovering "that making music was more meaningful than academic philosophy." So she took off on one of those American road trips. She was drawn to Fishtown in October 2003 by friends and rumors of a burgeoning like-minded community — one where friendly, straightforward ("not rude like you hear") artists share work and words while planting flowers and vegetables and screen-printing posters.

"When I arrived and saw how industrial it was I wanted to turn around. I'm glad I didn't because the community is even better than I'd hoped; diverse as there's a strong folk contingent — Espers, Jack Rose — but also Niagara Falls, who are psychedelic, and Golden Ball, who are poppy."

She's closest to the girls — with Espers' Meg Baird, with whom she sings and drinks too much Victory HopDevil; with Helena Espvall, with whom she plays crazy clarinet and does cello improvisations; with Brooke Sietinsons, with whom she plays spacey soundscapes and does gardening. It's with Baird and Espvall that Kraus will soon release traditional English, Scottish and Appalachian songs for a project called Leaves from off the Tree.

Though she loves her friends and her neighborhood, Fishtown is too urban for her. "England has too strong a pull on me. It's the trees reaching out to me, but beer is also a factor."

She says she'll return, unless she convinces people she loves to move to England. "We'll all live on a farm in the Oxfordshire countryside — hooray!" Until then, Sharron Kraus wants you to come to her house one last time. "Bring the sun and open ears."

Sharron Kraus plays Sun., May 22, 3 p.m., small donation, with Niagara Falls, Fursaxa, Shelly Blake and surprise guests. Address and directions are posted at www.honeymoonmusic.com.

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