Circuit Des Yeux - Portrait

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Customer reviews
Press release

3...according to our Clinton on Fri 15 Jul, 2011.

This is better. 21(yikes!)-year-old Haley Fohr with her third album of dark folk. Apparently this is a move onwards and upwards from the other two which I have yet to hear. She has a distinctive full blooded voice that recalls Nico but when matched with the simple guitar instrumentation she comes on like an early/mid period Catpower before she started courting fame and covering Frank Sinatra. It's bleak but beautifully so, simple guitar strums provide a nest for the yearning voice but by track three she has started experimenting with electronics eerily redolent to Japan's 'Ghosts'. Elsewhere there is simple guitar picking, strange and cinematic, not that far away from Earth's sludgy compositions. I'm also reminded of dark American gothy singers like Carla Bozulich, especially on the second half of the record which becomes nastier and more discordant. The final blues sludge of 'I'm on Fire' is particularly disarming, coming across like Low's Canada performed by someone at the end of their tether.

Portrait is Haley Fohr's third lp and a massive step in her growth as a musician and artist. while pursuing a degree in recording and ethnomusicology she has become proficient in the studio. the result - radically unexpected qualities of cohesion and hi fidelity posit portrait's narratives in a space that we've yet to experience. this sort of playing the game in the way that the game is usually played, i think is usually called a sell-out. and had her intent faltered to the slightest degree that conclusion might be apropos. but it's merely an effort to strip the canvas bare and get face to face with things. and it's haley's intent that continues to be championed, as it has endured the acts of recording and performing and yet still stands strong and pristine. the rare qualities of strength and character can only be attributed to a rare artist. the modest, clarion sparkle of portrait would not have been expected, or even achievable, considering the arc of symphone and sirenum, and it stands as a cornerstone and a monument, a testament to the daily practice of channeling her 21 yr old, roiling emotions into sound recordings.

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