Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr has a remarkable, androgynous voice that she uses experimentally and emotionally on her new album, a more collaborative effort than her past work.
She intones deeply and mournfully much of the time (moaning, you could call it), occasionally bringing Antony Hegarty to mind. Stunning harmonies and lyrics on Do The Dishes reel you in (“There is something deep inside of you / something that’s worth reaching into”), eventually leading you to third-last song A Story Of This World, where her voice cracks open into a dramatic yodelling vibrato, catharsis fought for and reached.
Fohr’s studio collaborators are a who’s who of Chicago’s progressive music scene. Members of Cave, Bitchin Bajas, Little Scream and more accentuate the nine compositions (two of which are 40-second instrumentals) with acoustic guitar, percussive snare work, dissonant horns, long-bowed strings, electronic textures – at times lush, at times minimal. It adds up to something meditative and dreary, slowly unfurled but steeped in too much anxiety and hope to be relaxing.
Top track: Do The Dishes
Circuit des Yeux play the Drake Underground Wednesday (July 8).
