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Beast is the latest guise of Mountains' Koen Holtkamp, initially created as a solo project that was performance-based and centered around his experiments with 3D laser projections.  For Beast's Thrill Jockey debut, however, Holtkamp was very much NOT in performance mode, as Ens was recorded around the birth of his first child and is far more shaped by that event and the resultant lack of sleep than it is by his fascination with light. Unsurprisingly, the resulting album is a strange and fragmented one, shifting from tender, pastoral reveries to eruptions of euphoria to dazzling and sublime displays of compositional prowess on a song-by-song basis. While a few pieces are a bit too straightforwardly pretty for my curmudgeonly ears, Holtkamp has long been one of the most intriguing synth composers in the game and that has not changed. His revelatory flashes of inspiration may be intermittent here, but there are definitely impressive when they happen. The opening "Paprika Shorts" is easily one of the best pieces Holtcamp has recorded to date.
Ens (Latin for "being") opens in extremely strong fashion with the aforementioned "Paprika Shorts," which steadily builds from a burbling synth arpeggio into an intricate tapestry of overlapping and intertwining patterns and melodies.Holtkamp has always been quite a brilliant architect at assembling vibrant cascades of colorful and effervescent synth tones and he outdoes himself here, unleashing a shimmering spray of twinkling notes as he slowly locks into an infectiously lurching and evolving groove."Paprika Shorts" is more than just a great hook executed beautifully though, as it seamlessly and unexpectedly transforms into a deeper and darker final act of glimmering minor key arpeggios and gurgling snatches of vocoder-esque speech fragments.Holtkamp achieves a similar degree of success with the other bookend, "For Otto."It is considerably more understated, gentle, and swaying than "Paprika," languorously bubbling, sputtering, and plinking with a warm central melody.Again, however, Holtkamp elegantly steers the piece towards something greater, first adding a shimmering layer of steel drum-like ripples, then allowing the piece to blossom into a coda of warm, rich chords and twinkling streaks of synth tones that feel like a sky full of falling stars.If "Paprika" and "Otto" were representative of the entire album, Ens would be quite an unambiguous triumph.Instead, however, the mid-section of the album explores a number of alternate paths with varying degrees of success.
Of the remaining five pieces, the lengthier ones tend to be the most effective.In the piano-based "Color Feel," for example, Holtkamp augments his slow and simple chord progression with a tumbling and lively torrent of shifting and overlapping patterns that takes a page from the great minimalist composers, yet adapts that aesthetic to fit his own genius for intricate layering.While it admittedly errs a bit too much on the side of radiantly cheery for my taste, it is nonetheless a thing of beauty as far as craftsmanship is concerned. Holtkamp keeps a lot of metaphorical plates spinning and each of them plays an integral role in shaping the arc and cumulative power of the whole.Elsewhere, "Staren" heads in a similarly beatific direction, unfolding as a rolling cascade of marimba-like arpeggios.Holtkamp throws some inventive textural and rhythmic curveballs into the mix though, creating a endearingly off-kilter pulse with pointillist, exhalation-like synths and an erratically stuttering and panning synth throb plopped right in the middle of it all.Again, I am not in love with the tone of the piece, yet Holtkamp departs from the straightforward enough to win me over.The few other pieces on the album feel a bit more insubstantial and incidental though, like they are just pleasantly burbling interludes that merely serve as bridges between the more significant fare.The sole exception is "Edb," which feels like a slow-motion and darkly lysergic companion to "Staren," transforming into a minor key marimba motif that seethes with panning and undulating synth swells.It would be a contender for one of the stronger moments on the album if it had more of an arc, but it is essentially just a brief vamp that presents a cool theme, then fades away rather than evolving.
It is hard to tell how much my opinion of Ens is colored by subjectivity, as my own preferences are a bigger factor than usual when it comes to Holtkamp's work.On the one hand, his work is often informed by a New Age/Kosmische influence that is not my cup of tea at all, and I am deeply weary of the glut of synthesizer albums that have flooded the scene in recent years.Yet despite all that, I still tend to enjoy a lot of his work, so he is clearly doing something very right.With pieces like "Paprika Shorts," Holtkamp transcends his milieu to be a great composer who just happens to use synthesizers.During his less transcendent moments, he merely reaffirms that he is among the top tier of contemporary synth artists, which is not a bad place to be either.Also, while being a great arranger and editor is not exactly sexy or attention-grabbing, those talents are rare to warm my heart when I encounter them.I just wish the actual content of Ens was consistently on the same level as Holtkamp's craftsmanship.Alas.Ultimately, Ens is an enjoyable if uneven album rather than a great one, but I certainly admire Holtkamp's ability to remain a distinctive and compelling voice even while expanding his aesthetic beyond the bounds of my personal taste.More importantly, the few times when the album catches fire are a legitimate delight.More highlights would have been welcome, but I certainly dig the ones that are here.
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A few months past its sell-by date for Valentine's Day, Skullflower's latest excursion into brutal, uncompromising noise-rock is not to be missed by those who'd rather skip the flowers, dinner and dancing, and get straight to the, uh... consummation.
Fucked on a Pile of Corpses storms out of the gate with three quick-and-dirty tracks that sound almost too brief by Skullflower standards. Album opener "Hanged Man's Seed" barely has enough time to sink in its teeth, much less outstay its welcome. By length alone, Fucked is the polar opposite of last year's monolithic, double-disc Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament, which didn't boast a single piece under the 7-minute mark. Instead, Matthew Bower opens with a trio of rapid-fire, structured pieces before the album's second half descends into hellish noise, somewhat in the vein of his 2006 effort, Tribulation.
"Hanged Man's Seed" kicks off the album with big bursts of trebly, shattered-glass static, backed by rumbling low-end oscillations. It's a compelling piece, but far too fleeting; this could've been a highlight on its own, had it been stretched out onto side-length vinyl. Instead, it quickly segues into "Viper's Fang," which boasts one of Bower's catchiest riffs under his Skullflower alias: a lo-fi guitar-and-drum motif buried in mounds of reverb and static. Strip away the trebly noise, crank up the subwoofers, add a vocalist of some variety, and "Viper's Fang" might as well be doom metal, or Mogwai-esque instrumental rock, or—you name it.
After a few quick jabs, Fucked on a Pile of Corpses descends track-by-track into Bower's comfort zone: thick mounds of hookless, joyless noise. Perhaps my favorite aspect of Bower's work (as compared to the purely digital racket of today's less creative knob-twiddlers) is the organic feel—derived from human instruments, if not always from human impulses. Accents like the howling, black metal-esque vocals of "Anubis Station," alongside the distinct, guitar-based feedback hovering over the album like a slow-passing thunderstorm, link Skullflower's would-be alien sounds back to humanity.
The most difficult piece is "Tantrik Ass Rape," which lacks the hummable hook of "Viper's Fang," the earthquaking rumble of "Hanged Man's Seed," and the shoegazy smear of "Sleipnir," which closes the album. Instead, "Tantrik Ass Rape" is more akin to Bower's raw, long-form composition on Strange Keys: deep listening for drone connoisseurs, brimming over with physical, unrefined noise.
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Over their career, Corrupted have been taking a slow (naturally) shift away from their initial starting point: the sludgy assault of the early releases has been replaced with something more akin to modern composition or ambient music. As such, Garten der Unbewusstheit is a logical progression for them as it combines the extreme heaviness of their old recordings with an almost gossamer thin presence. I have always associated their work with the darkness and the atrocities that appear on their album covers and on this album they distil all that hate in one clean swoop into a powerful, positive gesture without losing one shred of their music's emotional effect.
 
The three pieces that make up Garten der Unbewusstheit are less individual pieces than they are movements in what is nearly a symphony. "Garten" builds up from an almost silence as a stark guitar line slowly develops the motif around which the album is centred. The music sounds like Earth’s Hex album if it was re-arranged by Henryk Górecki. There is a sorrow, a melancholy that runs through this piece and indeed the entire album. However, unlike the bleakness of Corrupted’s older works, there is a feeling of hope running through each section. This hopefulness becomes almost a physical entity as the heavy guitars kick in; it feels like the group have scooped me up and delivered me to a god.
Like the aforementioned Earth album, Garten der Unbewusstheit is not just based on an interplay of quiet/loud dynamics. Corrupted use timing in a way that secures the listener in front of the speakers like a set of manacles. Notes are left to hang for what feels like an eternity before the next wave of sound knocks the disturbed air back down. Relying on timing and expression, the music is forceful even when the group’s focus is upon the delicate sound of a classical guitar as evidenced on the instrumental "Against the Dark Days," which bridges the two major pieces of the album.
The performance of a group as a whole is never less than intense and impressively, as epic and evocative as the music gets, Hevi’s vocals manage to chart the same depths and channel the same power as the other elements of the work. Sadly this was his last recording with the group before he left music earlier this year to dedicate his life to cosplay. Whether Corrupted do as well with his replacement, Taiki, remains to be seen but as a swansong for Hevi, it would be hard to beat this.
On the album’s closer, "Gekkou no Daichi," the band come together for one last, long push towards infinity. Slowly, they return to the same clusters of notes that opened the album before igniting the fuse and lifting off into the stratosphere. At its peak, the piece explodes into a cathartic, uplifting and decimating inferno. While I know a lot of people seem to prefer the old Corrupted to their current (or at least most recent) incarnation, I do not know how based on the sheer vastness and passion of pieces and indeed albums like this. The final minutes take all the pessimism, dejection and moral extremity that they have explored in their career and convert it all into one final hopeful thrust for a blissful enlightenment; a state of nirvana or satori.
I have listened to Garten der Unbewusstheit at least a dozen times in the last few weeks and it seems to only increase in its influence. This is an astounding album beyond any simple notion of "Is it good?" or "Is it heavy?" No, it is an emotionally cleansing experience.
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This is the second installment of Nate Wooley's wonderfully uncategorizable improvisation project based upon a fixed backdrop of abstract tape recordings.  Notably, it sounds radically different than the skittering and nightmarish first album (where Wooley was joined by Paul Lytton and David Grubbs) and continues to betray no hint of Wooley's background as a jazz trumpeter.  This is improvised music at its most difficult and listener-unfriendly, alternating between queasily dissonant droning and explosive catharsis.  I like it, but it is very much pure, uncompromising art without any nod to accessibility.
This performance, recorded in 2009, is a confounding and expectation-subverting one in many ways.  Even its very title initially puzzled me, as it unambiguously references Thomas Merton's autobiographical account of his spiritual journey towards becoming a Trappist monk.  There is nothing about this piece (or its predecessor) that says "quest for inner peace" or "religious ecstasy"– quite the contrary, in fact.  Instead, the mood is rather seething, haunted, and disturbed, as Wooley's true inspiration is a bit less obvious: the honesty, fear, and struggle of Merton's actual life.  In retrospect, that seems appropriate, as Nate avoids obviousness in every possible respect here (to an almost pathological degree).
The most significant idiosyncrasies come from Wooley's compositional structure and trumpet playing.  For one, Wooley doesn't just play the trumpet in an unusual way here, he plays it in an entirely unrecognizable way.  He manages, as near as I can tell, to avoid playing a single note in the traditional sense for the piece's entire 42-minute duration.  Instead, he uses contact mics to amplify his breathing and valve manipulation and to create feedback.  Also, the piece's backbone–the tapes–seem to be cut from the same cloth, which seems like a very bizarre and minimal structure to repeatedly base a lengthy performance upon (lots of hissing, scrape-like sounds, and understated hums).  It is nearly impossible to tell what is live and what is prerecorded.  It works, mind you, but it is difficult for me to understand the mental process behind it, though I certainly admire its daring.
Given that he is the only one playing a conventionally melodic instrument, C. Spencer Yeh's violin seems to drive the piece by default.  At first, he restrains himself to long droning notes that harmonize uncomfortably with Wooley's drifting feedback, but the piece gradually escalates into something resembling a marauding flock of inebriated seagulls backed by Chris Corsano's somewhat muted drum flurries. The piece seems to truly catch fire around the halfway mark, as Yeh's seagull attack is gradually bolstered by layers of low tormented moans, vicious bow scrapes, shrill air raid siren swoops,  feedback squalls, and an increasingly frenzied and cymbal-heavy Corsano.  There is no one better to have around for roiling, clattering cacophony than Chris Corsano.
Gradually, all the chaos subsides and the piece ends with drifting, uncomfortably harmonized drones and lazily repeating feedback buzz and hiss (but not before one spectacular and unexpected blast of stuttering, spacey sounding feedback and cavernous breathing noises).  It makes a fine denouement to the prolonged and visceral white-hot climax that preceded it.  Of course, the piece is not without some notable flaws (the first half drags a bit, it is markedly less compelling without headphones and focused listening, etc.), but they are very easy to forget once the trio hits their full momentum.  This definitely required a lot of patience, attention, and tolerance for dissonant harmony to fully grasp and appreciate (more than the 2009 version, I think), but it was ultimately well-worth it.  Wooley has birthed something unique and impressive.
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Xela and I got off to an unfairly bad start, as I was first exposed to John Twells through his anomalous black metal opus (The Illuminated) in 2008 and decided that his work just wasn't for me.  Curiously, that very album began the trilogy that this album finishes, but the only real trait that the two albums share is a devotion to all things bleak, murky, and ominous, this time manifested in beautifully forlorn, slow-motion drone.  That evolution is a welcome one.  In fact, the first half of this album is easily one of the best pieces that I have heard all year.
Having already ambitiously tackled nautical horror with 2006's The Dead Sea, it was only natural that Twells would eventually decide to tackle horror on a much deeper and metaphysical level.  He certainly did not shy away from the challenge, as this trilogy is very Milton/Dante-esque in both content and scope, with the emphasis placed quite squarely on the infernal side of life (and the afterlife).
As befits a fascination with the fall of man and the torments of hell, Twells' recent sound has been a rather scorched, gnarled, and corroded one, which is both a blessing and curse.  That hissing murkiness is very effective at conveying an atmosphere of  vague dread and hinted-at nightmarishness, but it also has a tendency to obscure the content or even to become the focus itself.  It is hard to keep a 20-minute piece compelling on atmosphere alone, but John has recently become very adept at combining his textural genius with similarly inspired composition and melody.  The Sublime begins exactly where The Divine's stunning "Of The Light And Of The Stars" left off, burying heavenly drones and swells beneath a patina of rot and decay in the opening "Lust & Paradise."  The effect is both achingly beautiful and crushingly sad.
"Lust & Paradise" is definitely the stronger of the two pieces, due to its steady throb, spectral melody, and slow-burning accumulation of power.  The closing "Eve's Riposte" has some inspired moments too though, especially the simple melancholy melody lurking beneath all the mist and rumble.  It would actually be the perfect languid come-down for the entire trilogy if it wasn't for for a monotonous and increasingly invasive major chord swell that consumes most of its second half.  I was initially horrified that Twells' was ending such an audaciously ugly and dark-hearted undertaking on an uplifting note, but some discordant grinding and buzzing mercifully arrived at the very end to plunge everything into discordance and hopelessness once more.  That late album derailment aside, this remains a remarkable effort: few albums can boast an entire side of absolute perfection like "Lust & Paradise."
(Note: The Sublime was originally issued on cassette by Digitalis in 2010 with extremely cool cover art, but that version is long unavailable)
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This collaboration between Locrian's Steven Hess and composer/field recordist Christopher McFall is sound art at its most desolate and decayed.  It's a strangely subdued and subtle album, with long non-musical stretches and very rare melodic interludes.  That doesn't make for the most immediately gratifying listen, but it is most definitely by design.  In its own way, this is blacker and more misanthropic than black metal, evoking the ruined and smoldering aftermath rather than the fury.
According to Greek mythology, King Minos was once the victim of a curse that caused him to ejaculate spiders, scorpions, and millipedes, which was exceedingly unpleasant for both him and his romantic interests.  Eventually, he found someone (Procris of Athens) that was able to cure him of his embarrassing affliction and was so grateful that he gave her Laelaps, a hound that never failed to catch his prey.  Curiously, however, Laelaps had a rival: the Teumessian fox, which could never be caught.  Zeus found the whole thing very tedious and turned them both to stone, but Hess and McFall feel differently: that paradox is the central metaphor for The Inescapable Fox, which attempts to create a similar struggle between light and dark.  I think darkness wins pretty decisively here, but the rare glimpses of light are enjoyable and unpredictable enough to keep things interesting.
The bulk of these five untitled pieces is comprised of field recordings, which gives the album an enigmatic and surreal narrative arc of sorts (or at least the illusion of one).  Medium also plays a very important role here, as both McFall and Hess are enthusiastic proponents of analog/tape recording.  In fact, this collaboration actually took shape in very archaic fashion, as the two musicians traded tapes through the mail.  The choice of media had an even deeper impact than that, however, as McFall often ravages his tapes with hydrolysis before recording, which is largely responsible for the murky and blackened atmosphere here.  Nothing sounds natural or completely recognizable–everything seems ruined, slowed down, or reversed in some way.  The Inescapable Fox is a slow and lonely drift though ominous drones and throbs, humming and roaring machinery, tape hiss, and sinisterly re-purposed animals and dripping water.  It makes for an unsettling and disorientingly amorphous listening experience.
Still, while I wholeheartedly admire the process, guts, and vision that went into this album, I think it leans a bit too heavily on being sparse and shadowy: a bit more actual "music" or structure would make it significantly more compelling.  That doesn't seem to be an artistic failing though, as McFall's very effective and perfectly placed blossoms of twinkling piano indicate that the duo were in complete control of what they were doing at all times.  I suspect that they deliberately avoided anything at all that would lump this album in with contemporary ambient or drone and–if that was the case–I'd say they succeeded admirably.  I am probably not ready to fully embrace sound art this spare, abstract, and ravaged yet, but I may very well catch up someday.
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Concluding a trilogy of releases that began with 2008's Indications of Nigredo and 2010's Order4, Closure... is a dense, operatic work of noise and harsh electronics. Tied together as an album and an overarching narrative, it is a bleak and grating disc that conveys violence throughout. It is a challenging and complex work, but a multifaceted one that takes multiple playings to deconstruct and fully appreciate.
IRM—the trio of vocalist Martin Bladh, Erik Jarl, and Mikael Oretoft—take cues from a multitude of difficult genres, resulting in nine pieces that never have the band relenting in darkness, either through overt force or insinuated maliciousness.About half of the songs that make up the album are blunt, confrontational outbursts of noise."Closure I" is all massive percussion and shrill squeals of electronics.Bladh's vocals appear nearly indecipherable here and throughout the remainder of the album in a similar way:buried in a pool of flanging and filtering that give his voice a sinister, otherworldly quality.Jerky vocals and abusive rhythms abound on "Closure IV" as well, having less of a distorted, and more of a militant industrial sound to it.
Without the percussion, "Closure II" might not be as immediately intense, but the buzzing and aggressive electronics act as a forceful accompaniment to the vocals."Closure VII" is another piece where the ensemble channels aggression without the rhythmic additions.Instead, it is Bladh's vocals doing battle with layers of synth distortion, building and compounding to an explosive wall of noise climax that is not far removed from Macronympha’s best work.
The trio dial back the dissonance for other parts of the album, resulting in more pieces that lurk rather than assault.For most of its duration, "Closure III" is a calmer, quieter piece of music.Ticking clocks, spoken word and what sounds like sheets of rain conjure a mood, albeit a gloomy one.Similarly, much of "Closure V" stays on the ambient end of the spectrum, with scraping cello strings by Jo Quail buried under buzzing electronics and a dark, sinister bass throb.Spoken word and abrasive sonics enhance the bleakness of "Closure VIII," with a more conventional and calmer bass guitar melody that underscores it.
There is clearly an central narrative to Closure…, but the heavily processed vocals make it anything but clear.There is the recurring motif of both performance and execution, and the intersection of both, which is bolstered by the shadowplay images presented throughout the accompanying booklet.Even divorced from its thematic content, however, Closure… is a haunting and harrowing work of harsh electronics that carries just as much intensity in its music as it does the words.
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Following up their debut LP and EP, Chicago’s post-everything supergroup Anatomy of Habit (featuring members of Bloodyminded, Tortoise, and Indian, amongst many other projects) continue their penchant for dramatic, expansive rock-tinged music. For their Relapse debut, they provide two lengthy, side-long pieces that distill everything that was great about their early releases into a cohesive, rich album that stays faithful to their previous work, while adding an extra layer of polish.
From the opening moments of "Radiate then Recede", AoH's influences are not hard to place.The pounding drums, subterranean bass and caustic, drilling guitar bear a clear early Swans influence, but with a bit more restraint and less overt violence.The production adds a lot to this differentiation, with the use of reverb and processing bringing a hint of The Cure and Joy Division to their sound.Influences, yes, but they do so without directly aping any of those projects directly, retaining their own distinct style.
At over 20 minutes "Radiate And Recede" works more like a suite than a single song, with the band working through various configurations of the aforementioned sounds.Sometimes sludgy and shambling, other times leaning into chugging metal riffs, it never stops moving nor becomes stagnant.Vocalist Mark Solotroff, the de facto leader of this ensemble, delivers vocals that are the polar opposite of what he is known for from Intrinsic Action or Bloodyminded.Rather than manic screams or shouts, he is detached, calm and clinical.Amongst the dirge and darkness constructed from distorted bass and guitar melodies, he clearly reads off scientific terms with an uncomfortable detachment.
On the other half of the record, "Then Window," the group retains the mood but changes the template a bit.Early on, guitar noise dissolves into militant drumming and wobbling bass rattles.The piece transitions from a looser opening into a more tautly structured passage of almost 1970s classic heavy metal, juxtaposing the differing styles.It is depressive and muddy, with an almost shuffling drum groove driving it.
By the middle it becomes a massive ambient expansive, with Solotroff hypnotically repeating the title of the album like some sinister documentary narrator, with the band throwing out expansive, fuzzy noise paired with the guitar melody present since the beginning of the piece.Compared to "Radiate then Recede" it is clearly a more static, frozen piece, but one that captivates all the same.
There are not gigantic strides made stylistically between the first two AoH releases and Ciphers + Axioms, but instead there is a greater cementing of their identity, as well as a more fully realized sound.Unlike most supergroups where each artist is pushing their "thing" harder than the rest, everyone here fits perfectly with one another.They might sound nothing like each other, but parallels are there between AoH and Kevin Martin's God in that respect.A gathering of musicians who mesh seamlessly together, each acting like a force multiplier to the other to result in a dense, heavy, yet thoroughly enthralling album.
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Following up their debut LP and EP, Chicago's post-everything supergroup Anatomy of Habit (featuring members of Bloodyminded, Tortoise, and Indian, amongst many other projects) continue their penchant for dramatic, expansive rock-tinged music. For their Relapse debut, they provide two lengthy, side-long pieces that distill everything that was great about their early releases into a cohesive, rich album that stays faithful to their previous work, while adding an extra layer of polish.
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After three weeks of listening to Haley Fohr's fourth (or fifth) album, I still have absolutely no idea what to make of it, which is probably a good thing (unless it is not).  In any case, Overdue finds Fohr further distancing herself from her abstract experimental past and embracing an equally strange present (and future?) that resembles some kind of unholy mixture of Zola Jesus, Xiu Xiu, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Codeine, and an exorcism.  As cool as that admittedly sounds, it does not resonate nearly as much with me as Fohr's earlier work.  The sheer force and conviction on display is still quite impressive though.
Overdue opens in both strong and deceptive fashion, as "Lithonia" is a very structured and melodic piece built upon a beautiful string arrangement that is impossible not to compare to Zola Jesus' collaboration with Jim Thirlwell (Versions).  While it is arguably the album's strongest song, Fohr never returns to that aesthetic ever again.  In fact, there is no clear stylistic thread to the album at all–the only real constant is Haley's deep, powerful voice and perhaps a tendency towards unadorned, stripped-down songcraft.  That makes for a very schizophrenic listening experience, as it almost feels like Fohr is rapidly cycling through a different number of guises hoping to find one that fits.  If this were Circuit Des Yeux's first album, I would chalk that up to Fohr's youthful inability to properly harness her incredible intensity, but she has been doing this long enough that it can only be a bizarre and deliberate artistic choice instead.
Overdue's most frequently explored territory is a kind of melancholy-to-outright-gloomy acoustic folk best represented by pieces like "My Name is Rune" and "Hegira."  In keeping with the disorienting theme of the album though, even otherwise straightforward pieces gradually become musically idiosyncratic (which is appropriate, given the uniqueness of Fohr's vocals).  "Rune" has the most subtle twist, as the minor key arpeggios are eventually joined by a warm and gently pulsing organ chord.  "Hegira," on the other hand, features some unexpected electric guitar snarl and lush, goth-inspired synthesizer chords, while the otherwise pleasant and sprightly instrumental "Bud & Gin" is gradually overwhelmed by pounding drums and wordless warbling before morphing into a backwards coda.
Notably, the most striking song on the entire album is also the simplest: "I Am."  In fact, it almost sounds like it could have been made up and performed on the spot, aside from the multiple guitar tracks: it is basically just a few grime-encrusted chords, a little vocal distortion, and an almost-possessed-sounding refrain of "I want out I want out I want out I want out."  Again, I am reminded of other artists (Jarboe and Lydia Lunch at their most hostile and unhinged), but there is nothing actually derivative occurring–this is simply how direct, blunt, wild-eyed rage sounds.
The remainder of the album calls to mind early '90s slow-core like the aforementioned Codeine: plodding, slow-motion beats and distorted minor key guitar chords, the sole  twist being that Fohr's unique vocals remain at their usual near-operatic intensity.  One song ("Acarina") warps that formula quite a bit further though, sounding like an unplugged Codeine accompanied by a gibbering, barking insane person and some kind of ritualistic chanting.  I am not sure that that is necessarily a good thing, but it is certainly a one-of-a-kind thing, which I suppose is its own reward.
Ultimately, I could not connect with most of Overdue's songs, but it still feels like a success artistically, even if it might be a bit of a transitional one.  Fohr is taking a difficult route with her work, gradually stripping away all of her previous electronics and artifice to create something raw, honest, and direct.  That might not be particularly easy on my ears, but it is not meant to be and the intent is certainly laudable (even though I love electronics and artifice).  Great art tends to be uncomfortable and this is flawed great art: even though I wish this album had a more coherent focus and was a bit less oppressively dark, I cannot help but admire the sheer force and otherness of Haley's personality.  In fact, I suspect that the detached medium of an album is probably a hopelessly muted way to experience Circuit Des Yeux, as it is easy to imagine these songs being scarily riveting in a live context.
 
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