(2022) Sharron Kraus - KIN    


Review:
KIN is the essence of Sharron Kraus. Her first album since 2018’s Joy’s Reflection is Sorrow; it is, in many respects, a continuation of that superb record. Joy’s Reflection dealt with the weighty themes of bereavement and emotional healing in a refreshingly open manner, an unusual achievement for an artist working in the often obscure psych-folk vernacular. Listening to it was a hypnotic, sometimes mind-bending experience, as you’d expect from a musician who has previously worked with the likes of Fursaxa and Espers, but at its heart, it was strikingly human and all the more beautiful for it. If KIN is in some ways a sequel, it is one born out of a changed world. Its songs were mainly written during the Covid pandemic, and many of them obliquely reflect themes like isolation, separation, family bonds and the human need for interaction with the natural world. KIN differs in overall feel from its predecessor – and from much of Kraus’s earlier work – in its musical openness. The maximalism that characterises the weird-folk sound is here stripped away, meaning that we can perceive all the subtleties of Kraus’s art, both lyrical and musical. The layers are exposed, and there is an arresting bareness to the overall sound, which makes the album’s emotional heart all the more accessible. The musical groundwork isn’t too different – perhaps there are more synths than before and an absence of woodwind and violin – but the arrangements are more precise. This will undoubtedly lead to comparisons with the likes of Jane Weaver or the Ghost Box Records-adjacent hauntological axis that runs from Broadcast to Belbury Poly (with whom Kraus recorded a wonderful concept album about Chanctonbury Ring in 2019). But Kraus’s work always seems more aligned with real landscapes, emotional and physical. Opener Tell Me Death begins with a swirl of electric guitar and organ that seems to be cut from the same cloth as classic folk-rock or else Cate Le Bon’s tuneful update on the genre, and this is certainly Kraus at her most melodic. But the depth of sadness and hope in the lyrics is allowed to flourish by this apparent simplicity, even as it transcends it. The Ways We Hurt is more sonically complex, ushered in by Guy Whittaker’s skittering drums and ambushed by satisfyingly sly electronic glitches and rubbery bass. All this is delivered with an openness, production-wise, that is almost trip-hoppy in its weird sense of space, and Kraus’s vocal delivery is almost hymn-like: the structures of some of these songs are almost like physical spaces, chapels perhaps, or woodland clearings, or phosphorescent caves. KIN is full of this desire to reconnect with the outside world. Sometimes it is explicit, sometimes unspoken. The World Within The World is a perfect example: Delia Derbyshire-esque synth washes introduce a beautiful, self-contained miniature of a song which seems somehow to expand exponentially in all directions while never losing its focus. There is a bustling percussive urgency on Do It Yourself that is like an itch, while gloopy synths creep about like lysergic slugs and Kraus sings of solitude and death. It’s not easy listening, lyrically speaking, but it’s compelling. The Trees Keep On Growing provides a moment of lightness, with chiming guitars and splashing cymbals, but there is something uncanny at the song’s heart, a sense of distance between humans and the natural world, a bridge that is difficult to cross. The span of a human life – a life lived in solitude – seems to haunt these songs; their eldritch beauty is of a decidedly low-key variety, and despite the space created by the production, Kraus is able to switch on the claustrophobia at any given point. Beginning the album’s second half, The Locked Garden is one of its most potent moments. The lyrics seem to be both symbolic and literal, and the vocals have a spooked, whispered echo, so the song begins to feel like the ghost of itself. Ethereal whoops and hoots complete the gloriously odd nocturnal picture. Elsewhere, strangeness makes itself known in more subtle ways. Weft and Warp is almost balladic in structure, with soft, sweeping synths, but the eerie detachment and near-surreal lyrics point towards a dreamlike state, a need to embrace otherness. Kraus is capable of some deceptively cute sidesteps. More Of Your Thoughts has a loping, jazzy bassline (courtesy of Neal Heppleston) that wouldn’t feel out of place played behind an Audrey Horne scene in Twin Peaks, and as the lyrics speak of a need for human contact, the synths snarl a wary warning. It’s deliciously misleading. But there is an underlying seriousness to it all, which the poignant Shot Through With You does well to highlight, while the final track, A Kind Kind (of Human), is an impassioned defence of altruism. Psych folk has long provided an outlet for strange flights of fancy, and Kraus is as accomplished as anyone else in that respect, but here she also mines the genre’s ability to deal with more consequential concerns. Impressively, she has managed to knit the two threads – seriousness and strangeness – together into one of the most rewarding, accomplished, and unexpectedly moving albums of the year. — folkradio.co.uk


   


Track List:
01 - Tell Me, Death
02 - The Ways We Hurt
03 - The World Within the World
04 - Do It Yourself
05 - The Trees Keep On Growing
06 - The Locked Garden
07 - Weft and Warp
08 - More of Your Thoughts
09 - Shot Through with You
10 - A Kind Kind (Of Human)


Media Report:
Genre: indie-folk
Country: Sheffield, UK
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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