Faun is a German band that was formed in 1998 and plays, darkwave, and medieval music. The originality of their music style is that it falls back to “old” instruments, and the singing is always the centre of attention. The vocals are performed in a variety of languages, including German, English, Latin, Greek, and Scandinavian languages. The band was founded in 1998 by Oliver s. Tyr, Elisabeth Pawelke, Fiona Rüggeberg, and Birgit Muggenthaler. Two years later, Rüdiger Maul joined the band as a percussionist. At the same time, Birgit left the band to continue her musical life with the folk-rock bandSchandmaul. In 2002, they released their first album Zaubersprüche. Niel Mitra was a guest musician on this album, and he later became a full-time member of the band, the only one playing only electronic instruments.
Faun combines ancient Perso-Arab melodies with the Swedish nyckelharpa and Middle High German lyrics. Equally distinguishing are Pawelke’s and Rüggeberg’s singing, mostly in two voices and, on newer recordings, the driving beat by Niel Mitra. Mitra has described the essence of the band as a form of “musical alchemy”, due to the different musical interests of the members and how they are combined in Faun’s music. The debut album Zaubersprüche deals mainly with slow ballads from the era between the Late Middle Ages and Romanticism. The instrumentation is kept entirely acoustic and waives modern instruments and electronic beats.
In 2003, the band released its second album, Licht, and performed at several festivals in support of this music. The second album features far less ballads, but offers considerably more danceable tunes like “Andro”, “Unda” or the double song “Deva/Punagra”. Elisabeth Pawelke left Faun in 2008 to focus on her studies in classical song in Basel, Switzerland. She was succeeded by Sandra Elflein, who left Faun in April 2010 due to a pregnancy and health issues. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Rairda replaced her but left the band in 2012. She was succeeded by Katja Moslehner.
In 2013, the band toured Europe, including Berlin. Later that year, they published their seventh studio album Von den Elben, which became the first Faun album to reach top ten positions in the album charts of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and was also their first album to chart in the latter two countries. It was nominated for the ECHO award in the categories “National Rock/Pop Group” and “National Newcomer of the Year”.
In August 2016, the band released an album called Midgard. It quickly reached third place in the German album ranking.The following year, Katja Moslehner left the band. She was replaced by Laura Fella. In November 2019, the band released Marchen & Mythen, their tenth studio album. In 2020, founding member Fiona Frewert announced her departure from the band. She was replaced by singer-songwriter Adaya.
