As often happens with new electronic artists, the first two songs from Doss were remixes. At the end of 2012, she released a reworking of How to Dress Well's "& It Was U" that darkened the original's empty-warehouse swing, smearing it with a claustrophobia that paired well with the remix's jungle-soaked vibes. A few months later, her remix of Wildarms' "Full Hearts" operated in the same nocturnal space as its predecessor but was less portentous—it crossed the finish line with something that resembled catharsis if not straight-up joy.
And then last month "The Way I Feel" arrived, the first completely original track from the recent Acéphale signee. What it shares with her earlier remixes is a foundation that leans toward the jungle/drum'n'bass end of the spectrum as well as a reverence for the sounds of early-to-mid 1990s dance music. But "The Way I Feel", along with the rest of Doss' self-titled debut EP, is a lot dreamier than either of the remixes that preceded it. The EP maintains a similar sense of propulsion but with a markedly lighter touch, its four tracks gliding effortlessly through the air rather than driving their way through viscous material. The blissed-out Lite-Brite melodicism of trance music can also be heard, except here it's removed from its big-tent origins and retrofitted for a more intimate setting.
"I don't care about anyone" Doss sings in a hushed whisper on "Softpretty", which swirls with a jubilance seemingly at odds with this sentiment until you realize that it's not lament but rather a timestamp—there might not be a special someone in her life at this very moment, but the yearning in her voice belies a hope that at some point that don't becomes a didn't. "Here Tonight" slows things down to a trip-hoppier tempo before unleashing its percussive downpour just past the track's midpoint. It's the heaviest track on the EP, but even here its throbbing low-end is tempered by pastel-colored melodic lines that curl up and into the sky.
"Extended Mix", which closes out the EP, stands out for its breathless precision, matching anthemic house chords to a stomp that evokes the sensation that things could careen out of control at any time. It's an evocative end to an EP that mines older sounds not for nostalgia's sake but for thematic material, embracing the fact that euphoria and melancholy are usually jumbled together and probably impossible to separate into pure strains. Her music has been described as "the true sound of tomorrow", and based on the evidence here, I'm almost certain that the irony of tomorrow sounding an awful lot like yesterday is not lost on Doss.
