Swift Wings by Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus

After collaborating on 'Chanctonbury Rings', 'Swift Wings' sees Justin Hopper and Sharron Kraus joining forces again, this time using the poems of Victor Neuburg as their starting point.

Victor Neuburg had two claims to fame: he discovered Dylan Thomas, and Aleister Crowley once turned him into a camel. 'Swift Wings: Songs in Sussex', his 1921 collection of poems, is a lesser-known artefact. But 'Swift Wings' is, in a tiny way, special. It vibrates with the magic of nature and of ancient humankind. With imagination and history. And it is from 'Swift Wings' that Hopper and Kraus have selected the poems on this recording.

The earthy-yet-diaphanous poems written by Neuburg and set to music by Kraus on this album are hymns to old gods, paeans to nature, love, wonder, and the enchantment of the Sussex landscape. After an abusive childhood and the darkness of his relationship with Crowley, Neuburg found love, freedom and happiness in West Sussex, and his new spiritual landscape became a magic of light.

Neuburg's poems shimmer with the rich colours of nature, the yellow of the daffodil, the golds, greens, violets and blues of spring, the grey of October. The fruits of nature are plucked and tasted by him, as by a child, and his ecstacy and wonder are contagious.

'Swift Wings' is in some ways an anachronistic project, and Neuburg's naivety may grate on some. But setting his poems to music during a pandemic that isolated us from each other and many of the things we cared about, at a time in which nature was a real source of solace for most of us, it may be that this collection is timely for other listeners.

'Swift Wings' is a companion release to 'Obsolete Spells: Poems & Prose from Victor Neuburg & the Vine Press', edited by Justin Hopper and published by Strange Attractor Press.

Musical collaborator / songwriter / improviser.
'Pagan radiophonica meets medieval balladry’
'sensual spellcraft’
'Floating freaky fun of the highest order'
'oddly comforting avant-garde masterpiece'
Labels: Sunstone, Ghost Box, Clay Pipe, Feeding Tube, Cardinal Fuzz, Second Language

sharronkraus.com
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