FAUN FABLES

Storytelling family tap into nature, avant-folk and Yes's back catalogue.

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“WE’RE PRETTY UNABASHEDLY into paganism and the folkloric,” says Faun Fables’ Nils Frykdahl, a telescope and a doll’s house visible behind him. He and his partner Dawn McCarthy are part of an alternative community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, California, and are 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 Gudrin 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.