Foto-© Dana Trippe
Die US-amerikanische Künstlerin Circuit des Yeux veröffentlichte am 14. März 2025 ihr neues Album Halo On The Inside auf Matador. Sie beschreibt das Album als das Ergebnis einer Metamorphose. Entstanden sind Klangwände hinter mysteriösem dunklen Popsounds.
Wir konnten Ende Februar mit Haley Fohr über die Entstehung ihrer Verwandlung per Zoom sprechen. Im Interview erzählt sie, warum das Fundament der Platte eine neue Einstellung zu sich selber war und dass die Songs Neben ihrem Leben nachts in Isolation entstanden sind. Wir sprechen über Ansprüche, Scham und wie sie sich antrainiert hat, den wohlwollenden Blick zurück in das Heute zu holen. Wir erfahren, warum Songs manchmal wie Suppe sind und warum man seinen Lieblingsmusiker:innen unbedingt einmal mailen sollte.
Your new record is called Halo On The Inside. What does that mean to you? What is it about?
I think one of the main themes is an inherent, pure goodness that we’re all born with. A halo represented a crown and a lot of religious culture. Someone gives it to you. Through this album, I realized that that power is actually like a child in us all.
Was making this album a way of accessing that power? I read that you wrote a lot of it in solitude at night.
I didn’t know what I was doing when I was making the album, but outside of the music, I was healing a lot. Usually, I’m very hard on myself and a bit of a perfectionist with my music and discipline. It’s such an honor to be a musician. But with this album, I took breaks, and I was easier on myself. I made sure to have time to go out to dinner with my girlfriends or to go dancing. And I think that that was the secret ingredient, honestly, to love myself more. And instead of reaching for this higher entity, I realized that I’m enough.
Do you think the change also comes from experience – from knowing that you can do it? Is that a development you made as an artist, or is it something that comes from being a woman and getting older?
When you do something for a long time, you always want to do it better than the last time. And I think that’s what’s expected of us as women. I overextend myself and no one is really asking for it. It’s just these little cues from society that make me feel like I have to be better than the guys. In the last couple of years I’ve really tried to be mindful and slow down and just take stock of things that I loved when I didn’t know any better when I was 4 or 5 – reverting back to what was natural. I took a little time to look back and say, „Oh, wow. I was beautiful,“ when I didn’t feel so beautiful. Or looking back at a concert where I was so frustrated, I’m proud of now and I see where those signals are coming from. I come from America, and we deal with a lot of post-capitalism, so there are a lot of things that make me feel ugly. And what do I do when I feel ugly? I don’t necessarily mean ugly in the face. I mean ugly as an entity, like something’s wrong. And so, I shop, I eat, I spend money, I do the things that corporate America wants.
Yes, to close the circle of needing improvement. Were you aware of this when you started making the record or did you realize it while you were making it?
I did it in the background of my life. And I felt very ashamed a lot of times. Being awake at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning can feel pretty wrong sometimes. But sticking with it and finding the good days in the bad days and taking small steps is what got me here. It didn’t really show until I was mixing and producing the album. Later, after things were written, I was able to see what was in front of me.
Can you walk us through the steps of making the album? Did you have a roadmap, or did you piece it together?
I had the palette already in mind. I knew that I wanted it to feel modern and huge and beats were a big part of that. So, I kind of went shopping for a producer. I needed someone to help me. I found Andrew Broder. He had dozens of beats that he just sent me. And there were these loops and all of the songs were written in a daze. I would go downstairs and look up some effects or software that I don’t really know very well, and I would sing through it. And, you know, at first, it’s terrible. But after an hour of doing it, you get into a meditative state. And that’s when things started coming out of me that were surprising, funny, and interesting. It was built out of improvisation and exploration.
The sound is very intense, as a listener you go into a tunnel and put it together, the more you listen the more you find the details. Did you go into a tunnel to make this? How did you do it?
There’s a lot of intuition. The ideas of others, especially Andrew, have been very helpful. I don’t have all the answers. And so there were big holes and I would say, „Andrew, what do you think?“ And then he would send me 20 to 30 ideas. And it’s not like I know what’s great. I know what sucks. I have a really big compass of what I don’t like. I know immediately. There’s this feeling of completeness in music that you’re looking for. Maybe it’s like tasting a soup and knowing what seasonings to add until it feels balanced. I’ve been doing this for so long that I have it in me. It can drive people crazy that I work with. For instance, Anthem of Me. I think it was the last night I was working with Andrew and we had the song and it wasn’t really working. I said, „We’ve got three hours. We have to start from scratch.“ He looked at me like I was crazy. But through that challenge, we came up with this pulsating strobe beat that’s in the middle of the song that anchors the whole thing. It’s really just me holding the line, knowing the feeling. And as crazy as it sounds, it’s like, „I’m not moving off this line until I feel it.“
With promoting, releasing and touring the album, you’re in a second cycle of being confronted with your work. Is it a different feeling to have the fruits of all that trial and error and isolation? How does it mix with the intense process of being on your own?
I can think of two things to this question. One is the translation to a band. The music changes with every mind and heart that adapts what I’ve done. That’s probably the most exciting part of it. It’s always been the most rewarding for me. I love touring and I love making music with people. This album was done with machines. So I’ve been practicing with my band and it’s amazing. It feels like a community and there’s nothing better than that. I’m already playing these songs in support of Alan Sparhawk on his tour. I’m dealing with the discomfort on stage the same way I felt the discomfort when I was making the album. I don’t know what to do with my body. I don’t know what to do with my limbs. I feel like this pure light energy. But when you’re in front of people, especially alone, you feel like an alien growing into something new. I’m learning a lot. I’m just trying again to find things that feel powerful on stage. And there’s a big growth spurt in my outward communication with the audience.
You also connect with people on social media. You do tour videos where you really take people along and tell them you ate three bananas in one day and stuff like that. It’s such a big contrast from the music videos and your performances on stage, it’s all very intense, very mysterious. Do you do that on purpose, does it come from you being a human being and an artist?
Through my art, I try very hard to leave identity open. I do the same with my performance. I usually play in the dark or with fog. But with the tour videos, I’m also really funny and I have a whole personality and I don’t want to suppress that. I want to connect with people. And you know what I’ve learned? As much as I love music, music has saved my life, but music cannot save the world. And as important as it is to me, it’s not the most important thing to me anymore. And I think that’s healthy. What’s important to me is loving people, loving myself, and having healthy relationships. I think humor is a big part of that. And you’ll notice in the tour videos that you don’t really see my face a lot and that’s intentional. You don’t hear my voice either. It’s kind of a response to AI and labels that demand so much content from a creator. If I was just mysterious all the time, it wouldn’t be real. People are multifaceted, so I hope it’s not too confusing and that people can enjoy the dark mystery with a little bit of laughter.
Let’s talk about the song Cathesix. The label text calls it the heart of the record. Do you feel the same way? I thought it was an interesting concept.
I honestly think that the listener is the one to say what the heart of the record is. Not me, not the label. But that song in particular was maybe the song I disliked the most. It’s so different from anything I’ve done before. It felt like the biggest risk. And out of the confusion of that I created this centerpiece where I was just singing sounds and it became this beautiful tapestry of wanting love and thinking you found it and maybe instead it was an infatuation and the value of false love and false hope. And I think that could be the central piece of the journey, being so alone and trying to find companionship. For me, that was the center mark on the map where I was in the middle of the journey. And it was painful. That’s where that song was born from.
The journey has been painful, the songs are intense, and the themes deal with things that make people human. It must take a lot of discipline to keep going back over and over again. There has to be something else that you find that makes it worthwhile to make a record in the end.
Well, there’s obviously a spiritual or holistic purpose. I feel like I have a purpose when I make art. I started when I was 17 and I was living in a closet for $50 a month. I really reduced my means to the point where I had nothing but music. If you look at my tour schedules from about 2015 on, how could someone like that have anything but music? But through that kind of dedication, music has given me everything. It gives me a shelter over my head. It gives me the people in my life. It’s given me a lot of lovers. And that deep connection. And now I’m in a place where I have so many other things in my life besides music, but it still keeps me balanced. If I’m not singing, if I’m not writing, I have a block. It’s like running a marathon or working out. It’s just an art of calibration for me, and I’m lucky. I make so much music. About 92% of the stuff I make, people don’t hear. And you don’t want to hear it, because it’s not all that great. But that’s just how I regulate and how I am, you know.
The record is done. You’re already touring it, but the release date is still ahead of you. Do you even think about that?
Release day can feel like test day. Sometimes it’s a little nerve-wracking. Have I done everything right, am I prepared? It’s a big responsibility; people’s time is precious. So of course I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It’s also like a holiday, like Christmas or something. And I get a lot of compliments when people reach out to me that maybe I haven’t heard from in a long time. The best messages are when artists say that my music inspired them to do something. It’s really kind of trippy, like birth and creation and the infinity loop in it. So for me it’s all set up and it’s kind of a passive day. I don’t have to do anything on the day of the release. But it’s fun. I enjoy it.
Do you write to other artists and tell them that they inspire you?
I try, honestly. When I was younger I did it a lot more and it had a pretty positive effect. I’ve written to Patti Smith, Carla Bozulich, Catherine Ribeiro, Annette Peacock, Diamanda Galás. These are all names that people should look up if they’re interested in female vocalists. And they all got back to me. I’m a small artist in comparison, but it just shows how much it means to the person receiving the email, even if they’re super popular and famous or no longer putting out records and have moved on with their lives. I would recommend anyone to send a positive message to any artist if they feel the need.
Thank you for the interview!
Circuit des Yeux Tour:
08.05.25 Kantine am Berghain, Berlin
