Haley Fohr Explores an Expansive New Sound as Circuit des Yeux

In Music Stories by Matthew Everettleave a COMMENT

In September, a series of emotionally fraught performances for Chicago singer/songwriter Haley Fohr culminated in one particularly harrowing set at the Hopscotch Festival, in North Carolina. Fohr was on the road by herself for weeks, playing bars, nightclubs, and theaters with just an acoustic guitar, often as an opening act. The combination of indifference and outright hostility that she faced from some audiences drove her, she says, to an unfamiliar and uncomfortable psychological state.

“There was a very dangerous evolution in my performance as an artist,” she wrote in a blog post after her Hopscotch set. “I was competing for attention, trying to scream a message over a sea of conversation, and it’s made me think quite a bit about my place. … I feel that I must arm myself with sound, with musicians, and take back what I feel has been stolen from me with an army of friends and supporters. I must leave behind trying to dominate a room with just my voice and guitar, because a sea of people will always overpower 1 woman, and I can’t afford to be slaughtered night after night. I no longer want my guitar to be used as a weapon.”

It turned out to be a pivotal moment in Fohr’s young career. Not long after she wrote that blog post, Fohr began recording her fourth album under the name Circuit des Yeux. The previous ones had been almost entirely solo efforts; for In Plain Speech, released in May by Thrill Jockey, she recruited a band to join her in the studio and on her current tour. The result is a startling step forward in content and tone—In Plain Speech feels fully realized and complete, an ambitious conglomeration of experimental guitar rock, folk music, and art pop that connects the influence of Yo La Tengo, the Geraldine Fibbers, the Velvet Underground, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Will Oldham, and Steeleye Span. (Fohr’s distinctive baritone singing voice makes comparisons to Nico and early PJ Harvey almost impossible to resist.)

“As an artist, I feel a great responsibility to remain sensitive and open to the world around me,” Fohr writes in an email interview. “I’ve recently had my 26th birthday and it feels like a coming of age. Suddenly, I know myself. It’s hard to explain. But I feel like the next step of artistry is at hand. … This is the first step in that path, in which I’ve recorded a record with a message for people to hear. It is intentionally for the listener, in hopes of opening up a conversation about the present and future.”

Much of the response to In Plain Speech has focused on Circuit des Yeux’s expansive new sound, which is built around an appealing combination of electric and acoustic instruments—flute, thumb piano, organ, strings, and piano. The musicians Fohr collaborated with on the album—Kathleen Baird (Spires That in the Sunset Rise), Cooper Crain (Cave, Bitchin Bajas), Rob Frye (Bitchin Bajas), Whitney Johnson, and Adam Luksetich—are some of the highest-profile musicians from Chicago’s experimental rock scene. Frye, Johnson, and Luksetich are part of the band for the current tour. (Bassist and synthesizer player Matt Jencik isn’t on the record but is also part of the current live lineup.) After the difficulty of her fall tour, Fohr sounds relieved to have company on the road and on stage.

“Touring with others is a very different experience than touring alone. It’s great!” she writes. “I’ve always considered my live and recorded performances as separate entities. I feel no allegiance to the recorded sound when I perform. However, the set does reflect the album with the full band. I try to keep it open and loose, so that everyone is able to find their own improvisational space within the structure of the song.”

But don’t expect this new version of Circuit des Yeux to be the one that’s around for the next album, Fohr says. The creative transformation behind In Plain Speech likely won’t be her last.

“I’m not sure that I will always feel so open to others,” she writes. “I’ve learned that people change so much throughout their lives. I can’t say how I’ll feel tomorrow, a year from now, or even an hour from now. But I’ve learned so much from working with others and pushing myself into uncomfortable territory. I hope the process will lead me further into transition.”

 

Circuit des Yeux plays with Give Thanks at Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) on Thursday, Aug. 6, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $8. 18 and up. 

Senior Editor Matthew Everett manages the Knoxville Mercury's arts & entertainment section, including the comprehensive calendar section—Knoxville’s go-to guide for everything worth doing in the area. You can reach Matthew at matthew@knoxmercury.com.

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