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Circuit Des Yeux's 'Brainshift' Holds A Disorienting Mirror To Humanity

Haley Fohr meditates on existence with telescopic ears and eyes. In the decade since she began Circuit Des Yeux, Fohr has mapped herself onto a world alone, seeking connection through music that rumbles in tandem with her oaken baritone.

You can list off the genres that are stitched throughout Circuit Des Yeux — dark folk, post-rock, noise, minimalism, psychedelic and ambient — and still never quite pinpoint the center. This holds especially true on Reaching For Indigo, her sixth album under this moniker and first since last year's cocaine-dealing cowboy alter-ego project, Jackie Lynn.

"Brainshift" opens the record quietly, with organ and synthetic choral voices, almost like an invocation. But instead of calling upon God for a blessing, Fohr asks humanity to examine its meaning: "The world wants an oath, but all you can say is / 'I promise to take up space / I can only promise to take up space.'"

The video, directed by self-described A/V manipulator brownshoesonly, is a disorienting but existential mirror to that humanity, featuring Fohr's face processed through sound waves, purple lines squiggling in a frenzy to the track's clustered horn arrangement.

Reaching For Indigo is out now via Drag City. Circuit Des Yeux goes on tour beginning Nov. 10.

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