The music of
Faun Fables is linked, at least tangentially, to the British Isles folk explorations of
the Watersons,
Steeleye Span,
Fairport Convention, and
Pentangle, along with nearly ancient strains of music from France and Hungary, all woven into a healthy dose of American primitivism, 21st century psychedelia, and modern production. Yet they sound like no one else. Light of a Vaster Dark is beguiling and intoxicating; it demands attention in order to gain the full spectrum of is happening musically. Vocalist /songwriter/guitarist
Dawn McCarthy and guitarist Nils Frykdahl, are
Faun Fables' two constants; they are aided by electric percussionist & violinist Meredith Yayanos, multi-instrumentalist Kirana Peyton, bass clarinetist & flutist Cornelius Boots, and harmonica player Mark Stikman. Light of a Vaster Dark, like 2006's The Transit Rider, is conceptual. It's a suite of 11 songs in four sets, bookended by an intro and outro. It addresses weather (actual and internal) and its place in the seasons of life in both literal and metaphorical terms. Certain songs, "Housekeeper," "Hollow in the Home," and "Hibernation Tales," extend the otherworldly aspects of the topical themes explored on their 2008 EP, A Table Forgotten, which looked at home and hearth as places of psychic adventure as well as rootedness and belonging. Here those metaphors are extended to shelter and the longing for it. Moving from darkness toward light and back again,
McCarthy's songs here engage both the fantastic and the mundane in their concerns, and the music plays with accepted notions of everything from Elizabethan folk and Eastern European modal traditions (the title track) to country rock ("Parade"). "On the Open Plains" uses a cacophony of tribal drums to carry otherwise a cappella voices across distances of time and space. It gives way to the near pastoral dreamscape "Violet," with its lovely harmonica swells underscoring
McCarthy's lyric and delivery. The chanted ritual song "Sweeping Spell" is populated with various percussion instruments; it illuminates the cyclical nature of this recording's themes. It describes a seemingly ordinary task that functions as an anchor during periods of uncertainty and danger. "Hibernation Tales," illustrated by glockenspiel, gypsy, and classical violins, guitars, and organic percussion, brings this magical, moodily, textured story to a close with an acceptance of the natural world's cycles. Light of a Vaster Dark is the most integrated aural illustration of the vision that
Faun Fables has put on offer. ~ Thom Jurek