Fauna is a quietly enchanting folk album from Dunja Knebl, built around a collection of traditional songs centred on animals. Each track draws on Croatian folk material arranged by Knebl and Roko Margeta in a contemporary setting, using a wide palette of instruments drawn from different musical traditions. The result feels both ancient and newly alive: rooted in folklore yet open to modern interpretation.
Each song focuses on a particular animal, sometimes celebrating its presence, sometimes tracing a sad or tragic fate. In many cases, these animals function as emotional mirrors for human experience — vulnerability, endurance, beauty, and fear. At other moments, the symbolism becomes more mysterious, drifting into something almost mythical and allowing the listener to project their own meanings onto the stories.
Jelen opens the album mysteriously and delicately. It unfolds like a quiet folk tale, filled with a sense of wonder and subtle tension. There is beauty here, but also something darker beneath the surface — a reminder that nature’s elegance and its cruelty often exist side by side. The track is evocative without ever becoming heavy-handed.
Konj feels darker and more ritualistic, but it’s also majestic and grounded in an arrangement that leans into traditional textures. The strings and wind instruments give the music a sense of movement and quiet grandeur — think of travelling over vast open plains.
On Riba, Knebl’s voice stands at the centre of the arrangement. Soft, clear, and inviting, her delivery glides over instrumentation that occasionally quickens in pace, subtly mimicking the restless movement of a fish darting through water. It’s a fine example of how the album’s arrangements reflect their themes, inviting the listener to engage imaginatively with the imagery.
Tracks like Kosutica, Tičica, and Žaba drift further into a darker neofolk atmosphere. Their delicate, slightly unsettling arrangements are intriguing, but placed close together, they begin to blur into one another. The similar pacing and vocal delivery can make this section of the album feel somewhat repetitive, and it is here that a hint of listener fatigue begins to emerge.
Elsewhere, the album regains its sense of spacious beauty. Zmaj offers a quietly delicate moment where the vocals and arrangements feel lush and almost ethereal. Maček provides another calming highlight — intimate, warm, and lullaby-like. There is a quiet magic to these pieces that reflects the beauty of life.
Overall, Fauna is a delicate and thoughtful album, mirroring the rhythm of nature itself — sometimes timid, sometimes playful, sometimes quietly devastating. While the album’s restrained pacing can occasionally make certain passages feel repetitive, Knebl’s voice and the careful arrangements maintain a consistently immersive atmosphere.
It’s a record that invites close listening and reflection, offering a poetic way of thinking about animals — and, by extension, ourselves — through the language of folk music.
Where to Find Them
- Bandcamp: listen & support on Bandcamp
