Circuit des Yeux - Paper bag

We're so drown into pop culture, that one a song defies conventional structures, we're very quick to dismiss it. Paper Bag by Circuit des Yeux strikes you with two minutes of ambient experimentation, looped obsessive synths that sound like the soundtrack of an avant-garde obscure film that deals with protofuturism, along with gutural noises that are sweet and tender, but able to create some feeling of asphyxiation by its repetition (think of Fernand Lèger's Ballet Mecanique); it's certainly something that you won't be listening even in alternative radio stations along with The XX and LCD Soundsystem.

Haley Fohr aims for music that suits better in a museum, creating sonic landscapes and atmospheres that defy the listeners expectations of what a song should be. It is not after two minutes, once that she considers that we have passed the test to be able to access the secrets of her art, that we start finding the more familiar structures of a folk song. Right then is when the cosmic trip finally lead us to the core narrative, and the sensations finally find a history to go along with.

Fohr demands us, screaming frantically to put our head in a paper bag. just to see what we can find. This demand aims for the interactivity in the piece (because "piece" is a more suitable word to describe what Paper Bag is, rather than "song"), wanting us to be part of this performative art. Now it's clear why she tried to create that idea of suffocation in her melodic piece, she wants to put us on that place of a possible death just to see what images will pop out: "Was it the memory of every room you've ever been inside?", she asks playing with that popular saying that affirms that people see their entire life running in their minds when they are about to die, or feel that threat, or perhaps it's just a single thing "Is it me? Is it you?", as if she would be forcing us to examine our consciousness to find what is it really the dearest thing that we have.

Perhaps it is all about Carpe Diem, enjoying the day because that could might be all that's left for us (or as millennials would put it, YOLO). Or perhaps is something entirely different, but Paper Bag doesn't offers easy answers, instead it invite us to a sensory trip to the insides of our own individual mind where this piece could be a trigger for whatever it is that is hiding there that needs to be questioned and that it's only ourselves that can offer a satisfactory answer. And that's what good art should be about.