Circuit Des Yeux – Sirenum LP (Destijl) / Fruition 7” EP (Dull Knife)
Tough ones to cover here, as I saw CDY hunched over on a floor over some effects pedals, throwing this tantrum of frightened empowerment at a show I’m not sure I wanted to be at back around the beginning of this year (Drunkdriver + Mattin, complete with blood and audience assault, that awful fucking Twin Stumps band, a competent Pink Reason set, and a headlining Homostupids I had to miss). I was nonplussed, to say the very least; I think I spent the entirety of the 10 minutes or so engrossed in some iPhone game. And I don’t want to come off too harsh, as such conditions are less than ideal to evaluate an artist, and believe it or not, I like to be fair. I also trust Mr. Dull Knife, and was suitably impressed by this Indiana teen’s work on the Cro Magnon 7” from the spring. Still, an album – though the current crop of under-underground artists may not agree – is meant to be somewhat of a sacred experience … definitely not something to release several times a year … but when your live set all but proves the irrelevance and didactic nature of what is meant to be expression, not parroting, it’s hard not to have negative thoughts going into these releases. And yet I’m pleased to say that Ms. Haley Fohr of Lafayette is on her way to developing something of value here, though you will need patience to get through it. Solo recordings both, the songs bring up unfortunate images of all-girls’ school singalongs, but there’s pain here, and it’s a pain that makes itself known through circuit-bent electronics, overmodulated digital recording, moan-delay, taunting piano, and occasionally, something resembling a traditional song, or at least a sketch of something that most other artists would deem “unfinished” and work on later. The crudeness of how this music was fashioned is undeniably part of the experience – it’s practically the entire experience, in and of itself – meant to express a mood, be it frustration, emotional torpor, an aural representation of Flowers in the Attic for someone’s freshman music seminar. You get it. Hints of repression seep from the song titles: “Indian Orphan” on the single; “A Siren,” “Paranoid,” “Shedevil,” “Binding Feet” on the album. And yet, somehow, there is a shared experience through listening to these records, like finding the artist’s diary and realizing you may have seen too much. In that sense, these are unquestionably successes, part of the modern canon with Grouper and the like. They certainly work a fuck of a lot better than that witch cauldron crud like Angelblood, made by legitimized artists a decade ago. The dream kids die, or move onto something else, and the dreams they spin rot and crumble. Fohr stands beneath the cascade of subconscious detritus, dialing away the distractions of everyday life and becoming the id. For pure expressiveness, you couldn’t hope for much more. I’d hesitate to experience this live again, but at home, alone, she lays the creep on so hard you won’t be getting to sleep anytime soon. 300 copies of the single (green vinyl, vellum sleeve, another ace Dull Knifer) as well as the LP. Think of it this way: most kids Fohr’s age are too busy aping others in their musical pursuits that it’s almost become some sort of nihilistic exercise in repetition, designed to make guys like me, who’ve seen more than enough, wish they’d never listened to music. That she could create something that defies categorization, sounds so intimate, and commands your attention, away from your Mountain Dew auto-tuned cumstain Warped Tour banality (formerly emo kids trying to imitate Dashboard Confessional), makes it worth your attention alone. You may not get it now, or ever, and she’s not gonna wait for you to catch up. The generation gap widens; best to try to understand now before you’re totally lost and turn into your parents or something. (http://www.dullkniferecords.com) (http://www.destijlrecs.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
