feeo: Goodness Album Review | Pitchfork

Even on her debut EP, at just 22 years old, feeo sounded like the weariest of old souls. She sang of a choking fear, of bombs falling like tears, of staying up to hear her lover leave because she couldn’t bear the thought of waking up to “haunted sheets.” Over toe-scuffing downtempo beats and wistfully unfurled synths, she asked questions—“Are we in love or is it just the drugs, babe?”; “Being lost is a bit like being free, isn’t it?”—in a tone that suggested she harbored few illusions about the answers.

It wasn’t just the wise-beyond-her-years lyrics that were so striking. It was feeo’s effortless balance of plaintiveness and composure, vulnerability and control. Her guarded, whisper-soft musings had a way of unexpectedly blossoming into R&B-schooled runs that proved that, for all her seeming reticence, this woman could really sing. Her tempos may have followed the halting pulse of a doubtful heart, but her voice telegraphed a quiet, determined confidence.

In the four years since, the artist born Theodora Laird has released a handful of EPs and singles, as well as collaborations with Caius Williams and Loraine James, fleshing out the bruised contours of her emotional world while burrowing deeper into the strangeness of her production. Composed of muted synths, thin tendrils of guitar, and atmospheric electronic processing, her sound atomized, turning granular and shimmery. A thin layer of dust seemed to cover everything, like a house that’s been locked up for years. Sometimes, her backing tracks were made of little more than tiny samples of her wordless voice, like a chorus of forlorn bumblebees.

On her debut album, Goodness, feeo returns with an even more experimental approach, befitting her new home on London’s adventurous AD 93 label. Her songs have gotten still quieter and more minimalist, even as her lyrical and conceptual horizons have ballooned outward. And while her voice remains as stunning as ever, some of the surface-level prettiness of her previous work has burned off, leaving a whiff of charred metal and plastic.