Table Forgotten [EP]

Faun Fables | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 22, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: EP
• Label: Drag City
• ASIN: B001AR08TK
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,816 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

2008 CD EP release from Dawn McCarthy and company, the first in an ongoing series of projects based on a theme largely unexplored in recent times: the age-old practice of tending a home and it's immediate impact upon our day to day lives. The music is largely shaped by the spirit, tools and movements of physical kitchen work and by the dimensions of housekeeping that are positive, pivotal and even revolutionary. Four tracks. Drag City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A really unexpected return to form, January 9, 2012

By 

mianfei - See all my reviews

This review is from: Table Forgotten (Audio CD)

In the early 2000s, Dawn Mccarthy and Nils Frykdahl of Faun Fables formed an unlikely combination that - whilst utterly under my radar and that of other people at the time - undoubtedly did a great deal to re-invogorate a folk music scene that had become morbid for a long time, especially since Ani Difranco lost her talent in the middle 1990s by trying to be an independent "rock" star. Their eccentric and mystical folk songs had many antecedents but the power and austerity with which they were presented on their mastepiece Mother Twilight was quite unlike most singers of this type beforehand who relied of shimmering softness. Unfortunately, on their next two albums Faun Fables became rather lost in generic ethnic folk music that only rarely showed the talent they had. The Transit Rider especially was disappointing and lost the qualities that made Faun Fables so great.

In this context, producing a short four-track extended play may suggest that Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl (who by that time was more famous with avant-metal band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) had lost everything they once had, but in fact "A Table Forgotten" is just the opposite: a total re-focusing on the strengths Faun Fables used to great effect on "Mother Twilight" and their 2004-issued "debut" album Early Song. Rather than focusing on generic world music flourishes, Faun Fables return to the Joan Baez-meets-Kate Bush sound that served them so well, but in the process they make the dramatic parts more dissonant yet quieter than on "Mother Twilight". More than that, Faun Fables show very clearly where the root of mystical folk singing as practised for the past forty-five years clearly lies with the whole theme of "A Table Forgotten": the daily lives of family women. This is seen to great effect in the haunting "no one sits/no one sits down" quasi-refrain of the title track, which really could be a wonderful anthem for the many depressed and lonely women of the modern world - it shows, better than Karen Peris ever has for comparison, the joys of family life, which I can clearly testify to in my own personal experiences. "With Words and Cake" is just as good: it has a fleeting folk rhythm that manages to capture a delicate joy that makes the music one which could almost be danced to, and the fiery acoustic parts recall the very best of Faun Fables as I came to like them.

The other two songs, "Pictures" and "Winter Sleep" are softer, less memorable and more delicate, but still manage to fit the concept behind "A Table Forgotten" very well even if they lack the punch of "With Words and Cake" or the title tune. "Winter Sleep" stands especially haunting and dark, however. All in all, no one who heard "The Transit Rider" would expect that two years later Faun Fables would be back producing something as powerful as they do here.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm and Beautiful, September 7, 2008

By 

Josh J. Elder "Cognative Dissonance" (Carter) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Table Forgotten (Audio CD)

Only 4 songs which sucks ,but still its another beautiful piece of work by Faun Fables.