Faun Fables
Fri May 13
Dante’s
1 SW 3rd
“My voice was given to me as an instrument for inspiration for my friends, and as a tool of torture and destruction to my enemies.”–DIAMANDA GALAS
It’s with this quote that the biographical section of faunfables.net concludes–a succinct assessment of what is without doubt the most polarizing aspect of Oakland’s Faun Fables. It’s a voice that’s rasped and sinewy, and fueled by a lung capacity powerful enough to burst a hot water bottle. It’s a voice with flecks of Grace Slick–had the Jefferson Airplane traded their more strained rock edges for a gig as a cabaret band. It’s the voice of Dawn “The Faun” McCarthy–and it’s only the first hurdle.
Upon exiting the cabaret scene of New York in 1997, McCarthy took up a presumably mystical journey as a traveling minstrel (no, for real) throughout Europe for a year, a maiden odyssey documented in Faun Fables’ 1998 debut, Early Song. Soaked up in a myriad of European influence, the music of Early Song was primarily a sparse, dramatic folk affair–one that completely defies the gentleness that such adjectives might suggest. Its follow-up, the hyper-theatrical Mother Twilight, solidified McCarthy’s vision–a combination of Shakespearean fantasy, mystic minstrelism, and freak-folk otherworldliness. There is nothing plain nor aimless in Dawn McCarthy’s folk vision–every corner feels fantastically focused.
Mother Twilight caught the attention of Drag City, who have since reissued the record, along with last year’s Family Album. Don’t let the logo of a modish indie fool you, however–the music of Faun Fables shares very little with the winking, painfully self-aware theatricality of the freak-folk movement. Faun Fables are, in fact, theatrical in the absolutely least hip sense of the word–drama club, Tolkien theatrical–and, it seems, deathly sincere. Because of this, Dawn The Faun’s approach feels much more at home within the esoteric realms of her now-frequent collaborator Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Idiot Flesh) than amidst the Nylon-ready Williamsburg “freaks” in dashikis–much more likely to be pumped out of, say, an organic co-op than spun between bands at the Doug Fir. Because, for better or worse, Faun Fables are the real fucking deal.