What a strange, beguiling musical world Faun Fables have ushered us into on Counterclockwise. It all begins with The Wedding, eerily pagan, with more than a hint of folk horror as the repeated chants establish a many-voiced community, fastening the binding ties of heritage, insisting that these people, the newlyweds presumably, will never leave their home or be released from their history. Ember Bell is sweeter, filled as it is with love around the cradle and warm hands holding, the hypnotic chimes persist all the same. ‘Washing Song’ is jovial, social and nostalgic for a dimly distant domesticity, with a nursery rhyme kind of bounce permeating the verses. And so it unfolds, making for an album of some of the strangest, spooky, misty and enchanting folk music you will hear today. One moment a centuries-old delicacy, then in a flash of smoke, a thing of cutting-edge modernity.
Faun Fables are a duo from Oakland, California, who have spent over a quarter of a century quietly nurturing a reputation for musical eclecticism and live shows that are both immersive and theatrical, incorporating as they do puppetry and dance into the folk storytelling tradition. The personnel include singer Dawn McCarthy, who is also the composer in the band, and Nils Frykdahl, a multi-instrumentalist. In the early years, McCarthy found inspiration away from the US, drawing on the folk scene of the British Isles to express her own creativity through songs and stories. However, it was the arrival of Frykdhal that unlocked an experimental art-rock edge to the sound, which has carried them on to the present day. Despite their longevity, the release of this new album, Counterclockwise, is a long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s ‘Born Of The Sun’. This slow-burning, time-woven release does justify the time spent crafting it into life; it presents here as a collection of songs with a timelessness, but certainly not weightlessness.
Counterclockwise is the first album entirely self-produced and engineered by Dawn and Nils, which adds to the arts and crafts feel of the finished work. As a title, Counterclockwise does suggest a step back in time (and the US way of saying anticlockwise does feel preferable, there is nothing ‘anti’ occurring here) and maybe also points to a reflective melancholy at the album’s completion. The duo have been bringing up their children alongside their recording work, and if that alone is not enough to encourage thoughts on the passage of time, it also lends a family-affair air to proceedings, as their daughters Edda, Ura, and Gudrin all appear on the finished record. I believe it is their different yet familial voices that bring such moving sentimentality to Maybe near the album’s close. Overall, the record is an exploration of time, not simply thematically, for it also shifts perspectives, delighting in the head-spinning effect these shifting sands can have on your senses or, as Dawn herself observes ahead of this release, messing with time in a “fertile and playful” manner.
There is absolutely a spirited joy that bursts through these tracks. Some are unexpected, and the cover version selections are especially bright and beautiful. I was especially moved by their rendition of the Bee Gees’ Black Diamond, which is a rather deep cut from the band’s 1969 album Odessa. Credit to Faun Fables for diving headlong into some serious Gibb brothers’ vocal stylings. They also stomp menacingly through “Black Angels” (Czarne Anioły), an old Polish song from the sung poetry tradition, presented here with their identifiable theatrical flair. Later and possibly most surprising of all, thanks to its familiarity to Western rock ears, is a very faithful and fond revival of Wonderous Stories by Yes. Perhaps prog rock is a misleading reference point, but it made perfect sense to me. The entire premise of Counterclockwise is to artfully present a collection of distinct songs that are naturally connected in texture, subject matter, and spirit. And just as in the greatest prog, the music here moves between tempos, time, tension and tone with both unexpected leaps and the most satisfying connections between passages imaginable. Counterclockwise is a deep and eccentric work, but ultimately a deeply satisfying experience, with so many recognisable elements that you cannot help but sense a welcome familiarity too.
Counterclockwise (May 30th, 2025) drag City
Bandcamp: https://faunfables.bandcamp.com/album/counterclockwise
