Faun Fables

“We’re pretty unabashedly into paganism and the folkloric”, says Faun Fables’ Nils Frykdahl, a telescope and a doll’s house visible behind him. Part of an alternative community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, California, he and his partner Dawn McCarthy are at home on Zoom discussing ‘Widdershins’, a glockenspiel and flute-imbued ballad from their fine new LP, ‘Counterclockwise’. 

“That particular song came from the daily ritual of putting our then one-year-old Gudrun to sleep by walking her counterclockwise”, Frykdahl explains. “We’d do it in our friends’ witches’ garden which has all these strange plants, and I had this powerful sense of déjà vu. You know that Buddhist idea that only the present exists and the past and the future are illusory? Well, I feel the opposite of that, so that the past and the future are very tangible. That’s something we’re trying to capture here – that sense of connectedness and eternal return.”

Faun Fables have existed for 27 years, but this is the couple’s first LP since 2016’s ‘Born Of The Sun’. “We’ve been dealing with a travelling circus of sorts”, smiles McCarthy. “Having our three daughters and working out how to continue touring, as we always have.” The closure of the duo’s favoured Oakland, California recording studio -and the passing of  McCarthy’s father and a dear musician friend – also prompted much recalibration, and ultimately resulted in McCarthy and Frykdal learning to record/engineer ‘Counterclockwise’ at home by themselves.

Their daughters sing alongside them on a meditative, transporting LP which celebrates the generational continuum of family life. Songs such as ‘Wedding’, ‘Lullaby’ and McCarthy’s hypnotic, new-age-sounding meditation on pregnancy ‘Ember Bell’ might sound a little too wholesome on paper, but ‘Counterclockwise’’s mystic, slightly disorientating undertow stops things getting too saccharine.

“I suppose I’m trying to communicate the trembling animism of everyday life”, explains McCarthy. “I’m looking for that certain frequency of alive-ness where there’s a sense of wonderment. I’m part-Irish and I also love that oral tradition where music is always around you from as soon as you can walk and talk.”

She and Frykdahl first met at The Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in 1996. Frykdahl was playing with his then band Idiot Flesh, and McCarthy was travelling with a Vaudeville-style sideshow. “We just started talking, talking, talking”, says Frykdahl. “Then hit the ground running writing songs and making puppets”, adds McCarthy.

Fine original material aside, ‘Counterclockwise’ also packs some unlikely covers. Faun Fables’ take on Maybe – the theme tune for 70s back-to-nature TV drama ‘The Life And Times Of Grizzly Adams’ – makes sense given bears and mountain lions sometimes frequent their neighbourhood, while ‘Prog’ readers will doubtless thrill to the duo’s brilliant cover of Yes’s ‘Wonderous Stories’.   

“Jon Anderson’s vocals are a magical place for me”, says McCarthy, “so if he got to hear our version of ‘Wonderous Stories’ it would be a dream come true! I’d like to try something from ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’ one day too…”

– James McNair

PROG FILE

LINE-UP: Dawn McCarthy (vocals), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, bass, flute, glockenspiel, drums, harmonium, trombone, tenor sax, voice)

SOUNDS LIKE: Freak folk and psychedelia with shades of  ‘The Wicker Man’ soundtrack and The Incredible String Band.

CURRENT RELEASE: ‘Counterclockwise’ is out now via Drag City.

WEBSITE: www.faunfables.com