Photo by Gabriel Schwalenstocker
The alternative R&B field has had something of a resurgence in recent years, with acts like FKA twigs, Poliça, and Sylvan Esso blurring the lines between the traditional and the forward-thinking. Songwriter and vocalist Doe Paoro has similarly found a home in the genre, her two stunning full-lengths — 2012 debut Slow To Love and 2015 ANTI- debut After — housing the limits of soul, synthpop, and electronic music.
Doe’s abode stands apart from those of her neighbors, however, made with materials and a special touch which are both familiar yet wholly refreshing. Like a blessed soothsayer or celestial spirit, she often comes across as more intimately in tune with the body and soul than her colleagues in a way that enables her to extract and articulate what’s otherwise not so apparent but obviously there. “There’s an assumption that pop music needs to be dumbed down,” she previously said of last year’s After. “But I think pop can be surprising and make you uncomfortable sometimes. It can ask you to think about something you hadn’t considered before, and maybe awaken a place in yourself that you hadn’t been giving attention to.”
Doe uses that same magical, awakening sight on her jazzy, smoke-filled cover of Feist’s “How Come You Never Go There”. She translates it into her own language, especially through the neon lounge of her vocal delivery. “I’ve always resonated with this song by Feist,” she tells Consequence of Sound. “It so simply captures the paradox of feeling alone in a relationship — the disappointment of projecting what you think your partner has the emotional potential for versus the reality of what they are capable of offering.”
Along with a recorded version of the cover, Doe has shared a black-and-white performance clip, filmed at Smacktone Studios in New Jersey as part of a series by The Den. Check out both the track and the video jbelow.
Doe Paoro 2016 Tour Dates:
05/21 – Austin, TX @ Stubbs Jr.
05/22 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
05/24 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
05/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
05/26 – San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar
06/09 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music Festival
