Sonia Kreitzer (born September 19, 1984), known by her stage name Doe Paoro, is an American singer-songwriter based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States, whose ethereal sound blends elements of pop,

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

, and R&B and bears strong influence of

Lhamo Lhamo, or Ache Lhamo, is a classical secular theatre of Tibet with music and dance that has been performed for centuries, whose nearest western equivalent is opera. Performances have a narrative and simple dialogue interspersed with comedy an ...

, a vocally acrobatic, centuries-old Tibetan folk opera tradition.Weingarten, Christophe
"Download: Doe Paoro's Untethered, Spectral Born Whole"
''The Village Voice'', 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2012-11-04. Her debut album, ''Slow to Love'', which Paoro composed while isolated in a cabin near her hometown of

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

, was released on February 14, 2012.Bradford, Mark
"Doe Paoro"
, ''The Recommender'', 2012-02-11. Retrieved 2012-11-04. She was named an artist to watch by

Stereogum ''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine. ''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several award ...

shortly thereafter.Singh, Amri
"Band to Watch: Doe Paoro"
''Stereogum'', 2012-02-15. Retrieved 2012-11-04. Her second album, ''After'', was released through

ANTI- Anti- is an American record label founded in 1999 as a sister label to Epitaph Records. While Epitaph's focus has mostly been on punk rock, Anti-'s roster includes gospel (Mavis Staples), country (Merle Haggard), hip hop (Sage Francis, The Cou ...

on September 25, 2015 to critical acclaim.

Career

A self-taught pianist and vocalist, Paoro trained in

while traveling alone through the Himalayas. During this period, she also spent several weeks practicing silent meditation, which allowed her to reflect on the "space between silence and sound." Her cover of Baltimore

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

band

Future Islands Future Islands is an American synth-pop band based in Baltimore, Maryland, comprising Gerrit Welmers (keyboards and programming), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), Samuel T. Herring (lyrics and vocals), and Michael Lowry (p ...

' "Little Dreamer" was released in December 2011; original singles "Can't Leave You" and "Born Whole" followed in January 2012. In 2013, Paoro released two songs on a 7" through White Iris Records. Paoro has performed at

Bonnaroo The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is an American annual four-day music festival developed and founded by Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment. Since its first year in 2002, it has been held at what is now Great Stage Park on a farm in M ...

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

Osheaga The Osheaga Music and Arts Festival (french: Festival musique et arts Osheaga) is a multi-day indie music festival in Montreal, Quebec, that is held every summer at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Île Sainte-Hélène. The festival takes place on six stages ...

, and

CMJ CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...

, as well as numerous venues throughout the U.S., She often opens her live performances with an

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

Tibetan prayer, and credits

Vipassanā ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

meditation with having a strong influence over the themes explored in her work, which include attachment, detachment, compassion, and disconnection from the human experience. "Hypotheticals", Paoro's first track released through

, was featured on Season 4 of ''

Girls A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.c ...

''.

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

All Songs Considered ''All Songs Considered'' is a weekly online multimedia program started in January 2000 by NPR's ''All Things Considered'' director Bob Boilen. At first, the show featured information and streaming audio about the songs used as bumper music on '' ...

listed Paoro on their Six Musical Discoveries You Can't Miss list. She has been compared to

Fiona Apple Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter. She has released five albums from 1996 to 2020, which have all reached the top 20 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' 200 chart. Apple has received numerous awards an ...

, James Blake,

Adele Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a reco ...

, and

Lykke Li Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson (born 18 March 1986), known as Lykke Li (), is a Swedish singer. Her music often blends elements of indie pop, dream pop and electronic. Her debut studio album, ''Youth Novels'', was released in 2008, and has been fol ...

, among others.

2018–present: ''Soft Power''

On 19October 2018, Paoro released her third studio album, ''Soft Power''. The album was crafted in London with producer

Jimmy Hogarth Jimmy Hogarth (born 1974, Orkney Islands, Scotland) is a London-based producer and songwriter, whose production and writing credits include, Amy Winehouse, Sia, Tom Grennan, Paolo Nutini, Duffy, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ren Harvieu, Estelle, Tina ...

and features

Leo Abrahams Leo Matthew Abrahams (born 1977 in Camden, London) is an English musician, composer and producer. He has collaborated with a multitude of professional musicians, including Brian Eno, Katie Melua, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barât, Regina ...

on guitar. The record was recorded live to tape and is an exploration of power dynamics.

Voice

Paoro possesses the vocal range of a

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Paoro, Doe 1984 births Living people 21st-century American women singers American women pop singers American women singer-songwriters American indie pop musicians American indie rock musicians American contraltos People from Fayetteville, New York Fayetteville-Manlius High School alumni 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from New York (state) Anti- (record label) artists