Release Date: August 16th, 2011
For Circuit Des Yeux, the Dead no longer Can Dance, and Bela Lugosi is still Dead with a capital D. Not only that, but St. Vincent is on a “Highway To Hell,” but she’ll be meeting Robert Johnson at the crossroads first, if one is to engage in historical musical metaphors to describe the sound of Portrait.
On Portrait, the artist redefines modern blues through a youthful but world-weary lens, in a much more successful manner than David Lynch’s recent “post-music” attempt and more so than the Cowboy Junkies retro meets hip-hop 21st Century Blues record.
Loosely translated as “circuit of the eyes,” Circuit Des Yeux is the moniker of Haley Fohr, a native of Lafayette, Ind., and a student at Indiana University in Bloomington, studying ethnomusicology and recording arts. From the beginning introduction, which features what sounds like a veteran bluesman providing his definition of the blues, there’s no question that she is providing a reframing of the blues.
It’s telling that the title of the record does not refer to what this is a portrait “of,” like Portrait of Dorian Gray, The Artist As A Young Man, etc. Rather it’s just a portrait, and the listener can interpret what they hear in this picture. At the same time, it seems clear that this album is a snapshot of where Fohr is musically and personally at this point in time.
With such anguish in her wailing alto vocals and a pace so unhurried, it’s amazing that Fohr is only 21, and this is her third full-length record since assuming the Circuit Des Yeux nom de plume when she was just 17. “3311” is the centerpiece of the first half of the record: “In 21 years, nothing has changed, the yelling still sounds the same,” Fohr sings, and it’s hard not to read an autobiographical element into her art, especially when viewing the video for the song she’s posted on YouTube, which is composed of scenes from a family’s home movies.
Even when she uses the persona of Buddy in “101 Ways To Kill A Man,” it doesn’t take much imagination to infer that the character of Buddy represents her own point of view: “Buddy never knew what it was to act her own age/playing grown up on a fucked-up family stage.” Indeed, that early prematurity is a running theme throughout Portrait; she is wise beyond her years and has the blues to show for it.
Portrait is the perfect soundtrack to the end of fall and the beginning of winter, when there’s a chill in the wind and the air bites the lungs. Hopefully there’s a fire in the fireplace, and the firewood simmers, flames and burn down to embers.
As if to underscore that fire that’s burning within, the record concludes with a live track (a typically ballsy move for Fohr) titled “I’m On Fire” that sounds like Joan of Arc being burned at the stake and bears only a passing resemblance to the Bruce Springsteen song of the same name.
Not all of the songs are as strong and compelling, but all of the tracks serve to create an ambiance that is both claustrophobic and orchestrally liberating. It’s hard to imagine that Circuit Des Yeux’s first two albums were any better than this, and given the breath-taking level of artistic ability Fohr exhibits on Portait, it’s easy to believe that she’s got more great music yet to come.
Circuit Des Yeux – Portrait tracklist:
- “Intro”
- “Falling Out”
- “3311”
- “Crying Chair”
- “20 and Dry”
- “Weighed Down”
- “101 Ways to Kill a Man”
- “I’m on Fire” (Live)
