Faun Fables, the long-running collaboration between Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl, have returned with Counterclockwise, the follow-up to 2016's Born of the Sun. With the longest space between albums in the band's twenty-seven-year history, the nature of time and experience spent raising a family and negotiating life's changes have much to do with the incredible listening companion Faun Fables have gifted us here. Counterclockwise's songs and production are the most encompassing, richly lived-in sonic world of their seven full-length albums. From start to finish, it is an exquisitely etched portrait of their aesthetic and worldview: colorfully studded with fine-hewed jewels of song, tinged with the traditional sounds of past and future nations. Their timeless 'songtelling' practice is entwined with a holistic view of a life in music -- embracing and celebrating the mundane details of home, partnering and family, elevated by a mystical and fantastical perspective. The new discovery here is their creative relationship with time. Counterclockwise began to take form in 2020, its songs brought together from over a span of fifteen years. Some came from commissioned projects about werewolves, Mother Goose, and other fairy tales. Others were rooted in familial traditions. Similarly, several cover songs salute crucial companions from different points in their individual and collective lives, making deep cuts from Yes and the Bee Gees -- as well as the theme song to '70s television program Grizzly Adams -- into further chapters of shaped time, well lived and loved, to indelibly light this collection. Counterclockwise is the first Faun Fables album engineered and produced by Dawn and Nils from start to finish. Taking the wheel in the tradition of the engineers that taught them, they have created a living atmosphere of songs and family. Dawn and Nils' wide-ranging vocal harmony tradition is enriched by the voices of their daughters Edda, Ura, and Gudrin, who contribute on keyboards and percussion, as well. Norwegian guitarist Arild Hammerø lends his singular guitar craft on the songs 'Ember Bell,' 'Hiawatha,' 'Wonderous Stories' (on which he also sings) and 'Maybe,' as well as the final, essential sounds that close the album. Dedicated with love to Dawn's late father, Edward 'Will' McCarthy, Counterclockwise is an evocation of the essential truth and joy of Faun Fables' relationship with time, the greatest value they can imagine to give to anyone who listens to their music.
![FAUN FABLES - Counterclockwise [2025] 2LP. NEW](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2457/2297/files/faun-fables-counterclockwise_HYluE.jpg?v=1747254165&width=480)
