Faun Fables

Hear Bonnie Prince Billy, Freakons, The Rheingans Sisters on “The Kingston Coffee House”

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WRIU Kingston Coffee House 10/28/25

By Mike Stevenson

On tonight’s KINGSTON COFFEE HOUSE, you’ll hear songs about heroic union organizers, deadly mine disasters, wailing orphans, and coal mining’s grim history of economic and ecological devastation in a set we call Dark As a Dungeon. We feature the wonderful collaboration between Freakwater and The Mekons! (“Freakons”, of course!)

In hour two, we will be taking a deep dive into the music of Will Oldham (aka “Bonnie Prince Billy”)

In the third hour, we play a set called Little Devils and Dark Angels – haunting music for the Halloween season provided by Faun Fables, Lankum, The Rheingans Sisters, Josienne Clarke and Róis 

Along the way, you’ll hear some classic Greenwich Village folk music from Fred Neil, Tim Harden and Karen Dalton

PLAYLIST

Ann Sheridan – Coffee shop banter from “They Drive by Night” (1940)
Freakwater – “Waitress Song” (Old Paint, 1995)
Rod Stewart – Tomorrow Is a Long Time (Dylan) Every Picture Tells a Story, 1971

DARK AS A DUNGEON
Merle Travis – Dark as a Dungeon (Folk Songs of the Hills, 1947)
[From the LP Freakons, 2019:]
Freakons – Blackleg Miner (traditional)
Freakons – Abernant 84/85 (The Mekons)
Freakons – Dreadful Memories (Sarah Ogan Gunning)
Freakons – “Corrie Doon”/”A Coal Miner’s Lullaby” (Matt McGinn)
Cowboy Junkies – “Mining for Gold” (traditional)
The Journeymen – “Dark as a Dungeon” (Travis) Coming Attraction: Live! 1962

GREENWICH VILLAGE FAVORITES
Fred Neil – Everybody’s Talkin'(Fred Neil, 1967)
Fred Neil – Ba Di Da (Fred Neil, 1967)
Tim Hardin- “Misty Roses” Tim Hardin #1 (1966)
Karen Dalton – “Something On Your Mind” (Dino Valenti)
Bobby Darin “If I Were a Carpenter” (Hardin)
Rod Stewart “Reason to Believe” (Hardin) Every Picture Tells a Story, 1971

Featured Artist: Will Oldham
Will Oldham/Palace – “New Partner” Viva Las Blues (1995)
Will Oldham/Palace – “Oh Lord, Are you in Need?” (There Is No-One Who Will Take Care of You, 1993)
Bonnie Prince Billy – The Dragon Song (from the film “Pete’s Dragon”, 2016)
Bonnie Prince Billy – “Intentional Injury” (from the film “True Detective”)
Bonnie Prince Billy & Dawn Landes – “Dark Eyes” (Bob Dylan)
Bonnie Prince Billy & Dawn McCarthy -“What Am I Living For” (What the Brothers Sang, 2013)
Joan Shelley “The Fading” (Like the River Loves the Sea, 2019)
Trembling Bells & Bonnie Prince Billy – “I’ll Be Looking Out for Me”
Bonnie Prince Billy “One of These Days” (The Purple Bird)
Johnny Cash “I See a Darkness”(American II; Solitary Man, 2000)

The HOBBLEDEHOY SET: Little Devils and Black Angels
ROIS – “Angelus II” (Mo Léan, 2024)
Jean Ritchie – “The Little Devils” (traditional)
ROIS – “Caoine” (Mo Léan, 2024)
The Rheingans Sisters – “Devils” (Devils, 2025)
ROIS – Oh, Lovely (Mo Léan, 2024)
Lankum – Fugue
Faun Fable “Black Angels” (Counterclockwise, 2024)
Lankum “What Will We Do When We Have No Money?” (Cold Old Fire, 2017)
The Rheingans “The Great Devil / Mr. Turner’s (Devils, 2025)
Josienne Clarke “The Madler Horror Story” (Far From Nowhere)

Faun Fables Announce New Album ‘Counterclockwise’ and share ‘Ember Bell’

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Songtellers Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl, better known as Faun Fables, return on May 30th with their long-awaited new album Counterclockwise, also featuring their daughters — Edda, Ura and Gudrin. Watch the video for their lead single ‘Ember Bell’.

It was in 2015 that we last wrote about songtellers Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl, better known as Faun Fables. We shared O My Stars, taken from their sixth full-length album, Born of the Sun, released the following year. That album reflected on raising children and embracing the wilderness, a family arc that extends through their long-awaited new album. Counterclockwise, arrives on May 30th via Drag City. Self-produced and engineered from start to finish, it celebrates the mundane details of home and family, elevated by a mystical and fantastical perspective, one of becoming young and growing again. As Dawn notes in the album liner notes:

“Time… the most fertile & playful of mediums, though full of mist…

We mustn’t forget time offers itself first as something to be creatively shaped.” 

Where some of the album’s songs came from commissioned projects about werewolves, Mother Goose and other fairy tales, their lead single, “Ember Bell”, is rooted in more familial traditions, offering a meditation on the organic complexities of motherhood and pregnancy where Dawn sings of “the dark tinderbox inside of me”. Throughout the album, Dawn and Nils’ vocals are enriched by those of their daughters — Edda, Ura and Gudrin — who contribute on keyboards and percussion as well.

Watch the accompanying video by Lara Miranda.

Source: Faun Fables Announce New Album ‘Counterclockwise’ and share ‘Ember Bell’ – KLOF Mag