Circuit Des Yeux Overdue

Received a 7.2 rating from Pitchfork.

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 USA 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 (modded 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 fifth 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 USA 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.