Circuit de Yeux

In an effort to write more proactively before the band arrives. Here is a post about Circuit des Yeux. ....so what if I don't have anything better to do. I've needed the excuse to write. I've had more time to listen to her latest LP Overdue, for which she is currently touring and will be in Chicago Monday 28 April, at Hideout. Her music grows on you and kinda needs that time. Its worth the wait. Haley is worth the wait. The tracks are long. The hooks are not obvious but the rip current underneath already has you with those familiar and dark soundscapes.
  Lithonia, hmmm, I cannot help but be pulled into a period with it, like Rasputina. Its as happy as it gets. Her music has that Clint Eastwood darkness. A ragged if not frontier cold black and white sky with the brooding, escalating intensity of slowly aiming a gun at exactly the right person at exactly the right time. Damn it. I just saw her roll her eyes and it just. .....ouch.....fuck it. At first it does not strike as the kind of dark music fit for a goth club to have its patrons dance in, .....you kids. ....And I can't believe I just said that but Circuit de Yeux .....she just moved to Chicago. I just love it when they do that, and I think its the south side too. This is something we can claim and see it flourish before us because she's our kind of brooding intensity. We were sold on The Cure/Joy Division because of how raw, intense and sincere and all that, yah.....or , was it because you could dance to the fucking bastards?......Hmmmm. Her shows are always compelling. Haley captures attention alone or with a full band. I'm starting to get familiar with her songs, even so, I sense that she can change them. All the recorded work I have gives me that sense that she leaves within doors open for improvised moments. Her range is between dark psychedelic folk to....dark psych dead can dance......really. I was not expecting to be dancing to this and yet there I was. Haley's gig at The Owl was crazy. It was like Dead Can Dance!  And at every turn, you can be cornered by that dark intimacy, that room in that haunted house and you don't even have Zak from Ghost Adventures to tell you what it is that is creepy, scary. The last time I saw CDY it was as a last-minute replacement for Weyes Blood at Empty Bottle. She was by herself.
  Once you're sold on her soundscapes as your own she creates out the same places in life we get stuck in, bored with, frustrated with. Her voice is deep, cool, powerful like it can go it alone. In her live shows all she needs is a guitar, like Jerry's uncle. In Overdue there is that one guitar that she hypnotizes, so her deep voice catches you like in My Name Is Rune. I go on about music that is full of this feeling of wonder, discovery and hope. I don't see that in the soundscapes of Overdue. Haley's work are gone from that. There is no warm morning sun but a harsh cold early light. In Acarina Haley slows down that white hot simmer to a nightmarish horses trot down cobble stones that announce your midnight arrival to a haunted town. This is not a track that I would be likely to discover until I own it. I hear it now and its so country noir -ish creepy. As I ponder on Ms Haley's music I notice I like her recorded music. I like her live performances. These are two different things that we can appreciate together because of the accident of when we are born. So Ms Haley Fohr is a compelling, intense performer and recording artist. Lets go see her, and have her be glad she moved to Chicago.
Zig