BRATTLEBORO — On Thursday, June 9, the downtown multimedia arts venue Epsilon Spires will host the band Circuit Des Yeux as part of their five-month tour of Europe and North America. The bill also features the Brooklyn-based music and performance project Humanbeast and Brattleboro's own Dutch Experts.
Circuit Des Yeux is the moniker of Haley Fohr, who began her music career recording in her old bedroom at her parents' house in Indiana after dropping out of the nuclear engineering program at Purdue University. Ten years later, Fohr has become a leading voice in the national underground music scene, releasing her sixth album as Circuit Des Yeux on Matador Records in the fall of 2021.
“Fohr leads her band with a 12-string guitar and enchanting baritone voice, playing a nearly unclassifiable blend of styles reminiscent of icy vocals of Nico of the Velvet Underground, the furthest experimental reaches of Jefferson Airplane, or the otherworldly arrangements of Anohni,” organizers say in a news release.
The Washington Post called Circuit Des Yeux's most recent record, -io, their “strongest album to date. Fohr explores every nuance in her voice, soaring and diving to unplumbed depths against a backdrop of her core band and an orchestra.”
Humanbeast, a duo who have been collaborating in various forms since 1996, combine synth-driven darkwave with lead vocals to “summon a sound that is both gritty and ethereal,” say organizers. “The ritualistic elements of their stage show complement the themes of the music they will be playing at Epsilon Spires, which they describe as 'old-growth Solar music for Lunar reflection on the elemental nature of loss.'”
“This is Humanbeast's first performance since the pandemic, and we are very excited to be performing at Epsilon Spires,” says singer Maralie Armstrong-Rial. “We will be performing material off our latest album, Divine Redeemer, and there couldn't be a more perfect context to convey these songs of reflective mourning,” she says in reference to the sanctuary of Epsilon Spires, which is housed in a 19th-century church that was converted in 2019 into a venue and artist studios.
Opening the show will be local new wave band Dutch Experts, led by Brattleboro's Hannah Hoffman. Raised with musical influences ranging from classic 70s rock and folk to alternative pop icons like The Cure and Kate Bush, organizers say Hoffman's music has developed over the years from a more conventional singer-songwriter aesthetic to an ethereal, 80s inspired synth pop.
Tickets for this event are $20 and can be purchased at epsilonspires.org.