Search - Tau Emerald :: Travellers Two

Travellers Two is a full-length recording from the duo of Tara Burke (Fursaxa) and Sharron Kraus. Together, Kraus & Burke have created an ethereal record of dark-folk magic. Tara Burke and Sharron Kraus were due to travel to Finland together for a week but missed the flight, so instead they decided to spend the week recording together, and Travellers Two is the result. The time was spent out in the fields, visiting burial mounds, and then coming back to Kraus's home studio to work. The two had played previously together, and done some recording, but this is the first time an album was conceived. Formerly a member of the Silbreeze band UN, Burke started her Fursaxa project in 1999 after UN disbanded. A longtime resident of Philadelphia, she decided to leave the city of brotherly love for the touring life. So from April 2005 through April 2006, she toured extensively throughout the UK, US, and Europe with friends and fellow musicians Jack Rose, Sharron Kraus, Alexander Tucker, Christina Carter, Marcia Bassett, and Spires that in the Sunset Rise, to name a few. For her live performances she uses mostly looped vocals, flutes, percussion, Casio keyboard, guitar, and mandolin in an attempt to transport her audience into the ethereal realms. On her forthcoming album Alone in the Dark Wood, she employs a myriad of instruments such as mandolin, guitar, violin, banjo, balalaika, organ, bells, flute, percussion, and voice. Espers member Helena Espvall and Burke have a duo called Anahita, and in 2006 they released Arcana en Cantos on Ireland's Deserted Village label. They are now working on their second release. Currently, Fursaxa is playing and recording music in the rural hills of Pennsylvania. Sharron Kraus is a singer/musician/songwriter who creates music rooted in the folk traditions of England and Appalachia. Her work is characterized by soil-rich vocals, haunting banjo, fine acoustic guitar, and visionary wordcraft. She has been featured in The Wire, Dirty Linen, New Folk Sounds, Arthur, Ptolemaic Terrascope, and Broken Face. She has been interviewed on BBC Radio 3 and has recorded sessions for BBC Radio Scotland, Freakzone on Radio 6, and independent radio stations across the US. Her fan base includes veteran folkies Shirley Collins and Archie Fisher, as well as indie figureheads Michael Gira, David Tibet, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Kraus's debut album Beautiful Twisted was released by Australian psych label Camera Obscura in 2002 and received rave reviews around the world, including a listing in Rolling Stone's Critics' Top Albums of 2002. After touring with US psychedelic folk band The Iditarod, she collaborated with them on an album of wintry songs and soundscapes entitled Yuletide in 2003. Her second solo album, Songs of Love and Loss, featured BBC Folk Award-winning fiddler Jon Boden and Grammy-nominated early music violinist Giles Lewin. Recent and ongoing collaborations include The Black Dove, an album written and recorded with Californian folk songsmith Christian Kiefer, and Leaves From Off the Tree, an album of traditional songs recorded with Meg Baird and Helena Espvall.