(2004, Drag City)

“…O tell me this is all old and light…like a summer’s day, so bright and complicated..like the night”

These songs belong to daughters and sons, entwined and orphaned, domesticated and feral; to all the family vines unraveling from a ball of yarn.

In this family album, runaways graze the wild together, a mother finds her courage playing the piano, dogs become thieves & wolves, and a son is taken too soon. Fourteen-year-old nymphs sit dangerously at the crossroads, a younger brother tries to find his place, packs of girls defeat fear with a march, and the nightly adventures of the household mouse are spied upon.

“Only three tunes on MOTHER TWILIGHT hinted at the feral energy generated by her union with Frykdahl. FAMILY ALBUM makes no such omissions, swinging between the dulcet nostalgia of a child’s song and the wild desperation of a pack of wolves.”

– SF WEEKLY, 2004
“One of the few people who have managed to carry magical thinking into adulthood, McCarthy writes songs that capture the terror and wonder of the natural world…I can’t think of a single act that’s done what Faun Fables does- not just sing about nature but actually sound like nature, in all its howling ferocity.”

– CHICAGO READER, 2004

Track Listing:

01. Eyes of a Bird 
02. Poem 2
03. A Mother and a Piano
04. Lucy Belle
05. Joshua
06. Nop of Time
07. Still Here 
08. Preview
09. Higher
10. Carousel with Madonnas 
11. Rising Din
12. Fear March
14. Eternal
15. Mouse Song 
16. Old and Light