Sharron Kraus
The Magic of Place
This paper is an exploration of my relationship with a
particular place – Mid Wales – and the music it inspired. At the same time it's
an exploration of something much more general and wide-reaching: what happens
to us when we're affected profoundly and inspired by a place. By looking at the
different factors that made Mid Wales so rich and inspiring to me, and the
creative process involved in drawing out music from the landscape, I develop a
theory about (magical) reality; about what makes our experiences of certain
places and things charged, rich and 'hypperreal'.
Some people focus on the supernatural in explaining
magical experience and would tend to assume that the charged experiences we
have in certain places are the result of the inherent (supernatural) qualities
of the place. My approach focuses instead on the ways our creative work
interacts with the world and creates extra 'layers' that become part of
reality. The myths and stories we tell about a place become part of the reality
of that place and inspire further experiences of wonder.
Sharron Kraus is a folk musician and composer inspired by traditional
music, psychedelia, horror soundtracks, surrealism, mythology and gothic and
magical literature. She has released five solo albums, the first of which,
'Beautiful Twisted', was named by Rolling Stone in their Critics' Top Albums of
2002. She is one of the musicians focused on in Jeanette Leech's Seasons
They Change: The Story of Acid, Psych and Experimental Folk.
She has a D.Phil. in Philosophy from the University of Oxford
