Interview:	FAUNA
Title:	Completely natural madness

The emphatically animistic, deliberately archaic ambient Black Metal of this shamanistic-atavistic duo from Olympia, Washington, could hardly be more unusual - but it could also hardly be more worthy of study, because Fauna have been producing highly interesting music since 2005.

With their fourth album, „Ochre & Ash”, they return to their roots after their 2012 predecessor, „Avifauna.”

Drummer Vines feels a sense of fulfillment and relief that Fauna has finally completed this aspect of their creative journey, he says — even if that feeling is mixed with a sense of disbelief that it took them so long to get to this point.

„There were many obstacles along the way that conspired to hinder our momentum and tried to entrap us in destructive loops. Somehow, a whole thirteen years passed since our last work was unveiled, and this seems hard to fathom. And yet we think that the work itself is as important now as it ever was.“

How do you see and evaluate „Ochre & Ash“ within your interesting musical journey so far?

„“Ochre & Ash” is the Earth-bound counterpart to “Avifauna”, our last release. While “Avifauna” focused on bird flight as symbolic of the human spiritual quest, “Ochre & Ash” takes a darker tone, recognizing that the descent into underworld realms - both external and internal - is a necessary precondition for the full realization of the Seeker. To unfold into our true forms, we must undergo a ritualized process of death and rebirth facilitated by the underworld journey. The aerial and majestic spiritual exaltation exhibited in “Avifauna” has become mired deep within a subterranean murk, brooding and muddy, lost in an inward collapse. Wings become roots that writhe and seethe, working their way ever deeper, choking themselves.“

With which moods and (caveman)visions did you approach the current songwriting?

„Resolute and determined madness, an unhinged clarity of vision that leads one to the ends of human cognition and beyond, in service of a knowing that transcends the individual.“

How can the readers imagine Fauna writing, developing and finalizing one of their new songs?

„Imagine two naked men seated crosslegged, sweating profusely, huddled within an earthen hut, swaying lightly in an imperfect darkness carved by tongues of fire. This is our visioning process as we develop the themes and the motifs that will guide our journeys, and also how we generally write our lyrics. To create the music, we obviously need to take a different form, sitting with guitars as we work out the parts and arrangements, some of which we do alone and others which we do together. But it is important that the work reflects our ethic and is not disembodied, that it takes place within spaces and contexts that reflect our overall intent and inspiration.“

Who out of you guys did the lion's share of the new song material?

„All Fauna material is born of an intense collaborative process, not just between us as individuals, but also in dialogue and communication with powers beyond our personal egos - ancestors, animal guides, spirits of the land, past collaborators. All have a voice within the works we create. It is a central part of the Fauna ethos that the concept of individualism is a poison, which hinders our collective realization and liberation. What does it matter which of us wrote a section of any given work, when the important element is the power achieved through collective endeavor? At the level of individual organisms we are alone and afraid - at the level of species or community we have power, and in this way all culture and connection is created. This is the story of human evolution.“

How was the selection of songs for the album done - was it difficult or rather easy for the band?

„We do not select among some grouping of potential “songs” picking and choosing among them to create our works. Rather, we craft the work as it is needed, using that which is born of the process and honing it to fit our vision.“

Is there and in case yes, what is the o-n-e song with the most meaning for you on „Ochre & Ash“?

„While the work is clearly broken into different musical movements, we do not feel that these separate parts make sense outside of the whole, and thus it seems a little futile to speak of a single part that has more meaning than any other. Does seeking make sense without the object of the seeking? Or love without loss? Can we discern clouds without the wind that carries them aloft? There are clearly musical moments that speak to us more than others, merely because they carry the energy that has built in their anticipation. That said, while “Nature and Madness” initiates the descent and desperation that animates this work, “Labyrinths” is its beating heart, narrating the underworld passage that animates our vision for this creation. “Eternal Return” completes the saga, coagulating the spirit up through endless fetid cesspools into new dawn and rebirth. Each has its role within the turning.“

I love the shamanic, archaic concept of the new release - the truly wonderful artwork alone is highly fascinating and inspiring for a spiritual and nature related mind. Please bring the readers closer to the main lyrical content of your release!

„Ultimately the lyrics are another means of communicating the same ideas that inspire the music, the visual elements, and the ritual, all of which revolve around this ongoing process of creation, especially as it relates to ideas of selfhood within an ever-expanding matrix of concentric communities. To become oneself means to engage in a transformative and dialectical interchange with the Other, to surrender oneself to annihilation through that encounter and to be reborn anew. For a brief moment to touch the unknown, beesech those who can never be fully comprehended and yet who shape the self in its capacity to comprehend, who are always at the tip of one’s fingers, unreachable even as they define the space through which one reaches. This is to speak metaphorically in physical terms, about that which is not just physical but psychological and deeply spiritual.“

Are there any (archeological) things, anthropological books, history documentaries etc. that can/have influenced you for the new songs?

„Fauna has been shaped by a great many thinkers and traditions, especially the work of Paul Shepard, whose book title “Nature and Madness” we borrowed for one of the movements of this work. But “Ochre & Ash” as a whole was especially inspired by the underworld journey as described by Mircea Eliade in his “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy”, as well as our broader studies and experiences within the shamanic tradition. But we are equally deeply informed by our own experiences and explorations trying to make sense of this world, seeking to salvage the wild and reverent threads, lambent within each of us, as salve against the madness and desacralization that constitutes modernity. And by those who claw against this behemoth to pry beauty from its maw.“

Your PR says "… on the side and in creative exchange with legends like Agalloch and Wolves In The Throne Room …" - would you like to tell about?

„We have shared ideas and stages with both groups throughout our existence, though it has been much time since we had meaningful encounters with either. As often happens, we have each threaded our own paths, to seek that which is most important to each of us in this miasmal landscape. Our path has always been to remain at the margins.“

Anything you would like to add?

„Thank you for maintaining an honest interest in music in this world that tends further and further toward disembodied abstraction and meaninglessness. There is great importance and wonder in actually inhabiting this world of flesh and folly, and we ignore our own carnal, human existence to our detriment.“

© Markus Eck, 05.08.2025

Photo Credit: Fauna

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