Dawn "The Faun" McCarthy, raised in Spokane, Washington, launched Faun Fables in 1997 while working as an artist, dancer, and songwriter. Nils Frykdahl of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum noticed her after the independent 1999 release Early Song, drawn by her commanding vocals, interest in performance art, and British folk-infused rock lyrics filled with pagan imagery. Frykdahl began collaborating regularly and joined her on 2001's Mother Twilight. McCarthy staged her musical The Transit Rider the next year, though its soundtrack remained unreleased at the time. That same year the pair put out Family Album on Drag City Records, then followed with the conceptual soundtrack album The Transit Rider, which appeared in 2006, four years after the stage production. Their 2008 culinary-themed EP A Table Forgotten marked the opening chapter of McCarthy's ongoing examination of women's domestic roles. Timed with the shift into winter, Faun Fables delivered Light of a Vaster Dark in 2010, another large-scale concept album centered on weather and the seasons and only the second such project after The Transit Rider. The duo resurfaced in 2016 with Born of the Sun, their sixth studio album.
