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| 0 | LONDON: Cafe Oto |
|---|---|
| P | Wednesday 14th May, 2014 |
| N | 8:00pm |
Currently based in Chicago, Haley Fohr started making music as a teenager in rural Indiana, before studying music production at Indiana University. With four albums already under her belt the 25-year-old has crafted a sound which wraps diverse instrumentation around her dramatic vocals in a style that defies easy categorisation.
"Each song on Overdue feels like a lived-in dream—not just in its hypnotic, voice-in-head sound, but also in the way Fohr builds atmosphere like a sonic set designer. Gradually, details accumulate and an internal logic takes over... Fohr puts so much power behind her music that following her into the emotional depths can be intoxicating, and even life-affirming. After all, one of the best things art can do is make you feel something, whatever that something may be. On Overdue, Haley Fohr is more than up to that task." - Pitchfork, review of Overdue
A few artists have had studios built for themselves – Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios a notable example – but certainly few albums have had studios built for them. Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr and Cave’s Cooper Crain erected U.S.A. Studios in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood over a few weeks in January 2013 for the two months of recording sessions that make up Overdue. Founded with the acquisition of a one-inch Otari MX-70 tape deck(moded to 8 track) and a vacancy in a friend’s apartment, the studio endured hundreds of hours over its brief flash of life. Fohr’s 5th LP under the name Circuit des Yeux (her fourth to see release), weaves a sonic bildungsroman, documenting the transition from collegiate cloister in pastoral Bloomington, Indiana to the noisy, haggard Chicago South Side.
Even with the hand-constructed baffles and grandmother-sourced quilts thickly covering the walls (and, intermittently, a light crust of sloppy snow), the sounds of Little Village are literally embedded in the recording. The strains of nearby norteños pierce the floorboards and the elevated trains murmur just a few dozen feet from U.S.A. Studios’ flawed sanctuary. The songs rise above the din, however… full orchestrations (“Lithonia”) and damaged hallucinations (“Acarina”) alike. Fans of Fohr’s prior, more experimental work are not catered to with this immeasurably more sophisticated new effort… but nor will they, or any other listener, be disappointed.
