In October 2024, Haley Fohr, under her Circuit des Yeux moniker, released “God Dick,” an overwhelming barrage of texture accompanied by lyrics invoking the phallic divine. Dissonant strings balloon, giving way to colossal synthesizers, frantic programmed beats at 170 BPM, and, of course, Fohr’s flexile voice, notably able to span four octaves. “God dick in my way,” she intones, darkly: “Horns growing, phallus dei.”
Such intensity tends to fuel all of Fohr’s work, which is often rooted in the deepest crevasses of the human condition. Her 2017 album, Reaching for Indigo, was borne out of a spiritual awakening that left her “convulsing and vomiting.” Her previous record, -io, was inspired by a grief-filled artistic retreat. Even Fohr’s more playful side project, Jackie Lynn, couches character studies in elaborate role play.
Fohr’s latest record as Circuit des Yeux, Halo on the Inside, is less specific in its origins, gesturing instead at a simpler terror: change. She wrote the album alone, under the blanket of night. It’s a lonely record about indiscernible metamorphosis, drawing on a more heavily electronic palette than ever before. It’s Circuit des Yeux by way of industrial dance music: sludgy, colossal, and teeming with darkness.
From the first few seconds of opener “Megaloner,” Halo on the Inside is immediately less concerned with Fohr’s guitar and the orchestral arrangements highlighted on -io. Instead, attention is split between her haunting voice and a slew of synthesizers, all fit for a sweaty, cement-walled basement. The percussion, which spans knuckles, storm drums, and drum machines, is deep and loud, rattling headphones and frequently thumping above the mix. It bores its way into your head, alchemizing from the inside out.
Halo on the Inside also, refreshingly, speaks to the pop music of the past. “Organ Bed” features a sly saxophone solo and a jungle of propulsive texture that, at times, sounds like a more anxious and gothic version of Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street.” The dungeon-core “Canopy of Eden” could fit on any ’90s Depeche Mode record, with Fohr’s operatic wails echoing behind a pulsing techno wub. It’s Circuit des Yeux’s own wall of sound, girded by a combination of emotion and grandeur.
Invoking the pop sounds of yore results in some of Fohr’s most accessible work yet. “I can make a radio break,” she repeats on “Canopy of Eden,” a phrase that serves as a double entendre: both a striking moment of self-awareness and an allusion to the music destroying its vessel. Much like the metamorphosis she sings about, the album shifts to more maximalist fare, switching the discordant orchestra for swelling electro-cacophony. And even though it might not hit the terrestrial airwaves, it would go gangbusters at the blood rave in Blade.
Fohr’s lyrics often function less as songs and more as poems, renderings of tragic transformations and emotional crossroads. From a less confident artist, her writing might sound trite, but vocal experimentation is Fohr’s strength. The malleable and arresting delivery at the album’s core pushes the music forward, often reinventing itself mid-song. “Truth is just imagination of the mind,” she repeats on “Truth,” spinning that simple phrase into layered webs by surrounding it with amorphous incantations. The record’s sixth track, “Cathexis,” is essentially Fohr’s version of “Waking the Witch” by Kate Bush, where whispers swirl around like blustering cliffside winds.
By the end of the record, the horror becomes all-consuming. Fohr’s songwriting has always contained touches of darkness, but this is the first time the shadows have been so alien. As Halo on the Inside gestures at eldritch change, it neither soothes nor shows the light. It instead becomes an enveloping cocoon of helplessness, with only Fohr’s voice cutting through to serve as a guide.
