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, Rovi

1		Intro: Darkness
2		Light of a Vaster Dark
3		Housekeeper
4		On the Open Plains
5		Violet
6		Interlude 1
7		Hollow In the Home
8		Interlude 2
9		Parade
10		Hear the Grinder Creak
11		Interlude 3
12		Sweeping Spell
13		O Mary
14		Bells for Ura
15		Hibernation Tales
16		Outro: Light