A Particular Descent

The Dø are a Paris-based duo—Finnish vocalist Olivia Merilahti and French musician Dan Levy—and their sound occupies a specific, hard-to-replicate pocket: folk structures undermined by electronic textures, Merilahti’s voice doing something slightly off-frequency that you can never quite pin down. Slippery Slope arrived in late 2010 and carries the texture the duo does best—something that introduces itself quietly and then refuses to leave. There’s a precision to how they build tension; nothing overcommits, the instrumentation holds back just enough that when the melody finally opens up it registers as relief and loss at the same time. I come back to their records when I want music that understands restraint as its own kind of pressure.