Beat Drun Juel

  No way was I going to miss this.  The Whistler is tiny all the time, right? Some bands are loud like ..."really Whistler?.....ok!"....and that makes it even more hells yeah.  A tiny place is gonna make it more explosive and imposing. You can sit at the fucking table just below the stage. Beat Drun Juel will sound like they are right on top if you're on acid. Right fucking there. Oh you.... don't... like..... acid. T'is the metaphorical kind. Perfectly safe....still no? More for me then.....still you object?  Even my metaphors have to be straight-edge? Bloody hell! I remember Venus from Moritat at this show. I'm trying to put Kon there as well because I recall chilling with him outside and around the corner from Whistler talking about Moritat's tour in New York. This moment would have been just after the BDJ set. I know I saw them as soon as I walked in. It was through them that I even know of Beat Drun Juel. Using flash seemed loud and intrusive.  That's why the pictures came out the way they did.
  I'm getting more familiar with their music.....now that I can listen to it from the car. Thank You Donna!! After the show she gave me the vinyl with the download code.  That was beyond awesome of her and I am eternally grateful. I can't get enough of Satisfy. It's so Nick Cave! Abrasive, aggressive....and for me bluesy, about as pronounced as in PJ Harvey. And there I go putting them together, Beat Drun Juel and PJ. But its for a fucking reason. Donna says everything with dominant authority, like she's a fucking branding iron. Every song has its own set of balls. And then there's how she plays guitar. She is a brilliant guitarist.  Her skills seem older than Donna. She is young, but she is an old guitarist. If that makes sense....it will circle back.
  Her delivery of every line of Satisfy, is blusey and empowering.  You feel bolder for hearing it. And its something to see that energy express spontaneously on stage. There's reading a play that you have wanted to see for ever and there's seeing a staged production of it....in fucking Camden! ....Hmmm, that is something that actually happened. I saw Marsha Norman's 'Night Mother in this tiny stage......OK, hmm,  I believe Donna was a guitarist before a singer.
  There's this confidence in her expression that you wanna have yourself when you know you are knocking them out. She has this.....Billy Idol sneer that flashes to the guitarist....or to no one. I don't fucking know. Its an expression that betrays dominance, and confidence in what she is doing. She is in command of that moment. That is her expression on random intervals. I'm sorry about going on, shining this microscope on this tiny thing and blowing it up. There is a story I have to build and sometimes I stop and observe the decelerated details. This is how the story weaves itself. You will only catch them when the place is small and affords you that moment. This lights up a vicious binge of hearing them in the car again.
  I'm going on about actually seeing her at Whistler but there is a video of Satisfy on YouTube thats awesome, just plain. For all those bands that you miss and are eventually content with the relics that modernity allows, the CD, vinyl, cassette.....download code, 8-track. For all those that you miss you want to be close this time to see these little things. For the moment I go on about this one track because I need to give the previous EP Off Your Face a break.....that one is brilliant too.
Zig

Circuit des Yeux

  Don't ask me how but I find CdY sounding.....colorful and vivid with dangerous dark landscapes that if urban, not entirely tame, still dangerous. Rural, but not that safe sweet country. Urban, not in the big city sense but on a smaller midwestern scale. Her music is a flashlight of wonder into the darkening weirdness. Haley's comes from familiar places not completely otherworldly but she makes them that way. With  Acarina I finally have the perfect soundtrack to my grandparents hyper local Grim style Mexican ghost stories. Its no effort to imagine Clint Eastwood loading a gun and rolling a cigarette to this as well. That track for me is eerie and haunting as it is minimal, this is easily Circuit des Yeux's Raw Head And

 

Bloody Bones.  Even when this minimal, she is real intense. Hmm, perhaps this is a tremendously late observation of this track. But its indicative of how dark , deep and urgent she is just by herself. This one show I caught at the MCA was through a most bitter winter cold. You can see your fucking breath like you were assisting The Exorcist, mopping up all the unholy vomit while he glams it up telling demons to go fuck off.  I took the Orange Line to the Red Line....I think. I took home the CD for Overdue.  It was just her and a guitar and fucking wow-ness!! I'm glad that she has a band now, because.....now its fucking crazy. She was a solo act....now she writes chamber music.  Well....for me its always been chamber music that Haley played solo until recently. Friday night at Hideout, I saw Ms Haley Fohr take the stage as the awesome Circuit des Yeux. This Hideout show was in the summer. No breath to see, .....no vomit to clean up. Just an awesome, empowering show.
  I say chamber music because I find CdY has that kind of classical chamber music intensity.  . She just brings this raw, unfiltered seething engine behind everything. Her ambient is more tense than the stillest of dark waters.  And that tension burns and explodes and resonates for a reason. Hell, for many fucking reasons. She is resonant but you never see that impression coming.
  This time it was a full band that included Whitney, from Verma. Whitney also has her own band Matchess. She plays the viola.  I've seen her with Verma and they are bad ass. Here and there I noticed myself saying violin, 'cause I don't know better. On that Friday night, I was happy to see them all in Circuit des Yeux.
  They are touring for the new release In Plain Speech. Do The Dishes is so dramatic. It simmers and builds up to its most sacred moment.  They have a video for it. They cut the wick even shorter for Ride Blind. The drums give it this special urgency. This is the song that makes me think of classical chamber music. Her singing voice is so deep and full. Its like with Katie Jane Garside from Queen Adreena only the reverse. Katie Jane's singing voice is almost girl-like. Its her speaking voice that is deep and womanly. Haley's singing voice is what is deep, womanly. Its a voice that hmm, sounds wise, clear and mature. You're gonna listen to whatever she has to say like its Morgan Freeman, magnanimous.  She has spoken about how deep her voice has reached in interviews. If she was an opera singer, they would have her play Lady McBeth. Well.....I think they would categorize her voice as contralto. Seriously they would have cast her to play villains exclusively. Even in that world she would be seen as rare and precious. Fine....precious was my word. I have been a fan of hers for a good long time it feels like. I go on about her a lot and yet I know I could not sell her music to everyone even as I am completely sold on her. Her shows are so unique from each other. Do not expect for her live work to sound exactly like what's recorded. That for me is a feature, because for me it means the tracks are like books with new chapters to read that I did not know of and here is Haley for a new staged reading. As of late I have seen her play from a 12 string guitar. Her hair over face and mic. That is so mysterious for me. I'm so glad she chose Chicago's south side to live in. One set of pictures are from Empty Bottle and the ones with her hair in her face are from Hideout.
Zig