Multimedia artist DORIS swiftly climbed the ranks of my Spotify wrapped over the summer when he released a 50-track compilation of SoundCloud sketches he titled, Ultimate Love Songs Collection . Ever since my first listen in July, I became obsessed with the way DORIS combined his love for diverse eras of music, soul-baring one-liners painting scenes of love, confessions, and guilty vices, and cheeky confessions about his love for those guilty vices. However, his unique vocal production functioned as the string that tied these features together, guiding the listener throughout the project, and is the quality that stuck with me most. The raspy moments in his singing, working with the noticeable autotuning in his rapping, meld with his signature vocal processing formula, which allows him to uniquely manipulate the pitch and formant of his voice to match the constantly shifting tone and aesthetic of each song as he displays to the listener a fragmented tour of his psyche.

I’m resistant to use words like “demos” or “loosies” to label these tracks and I’m more resistant to using words like “Lo-Fi” to describe his aesthetic despite it being the easiest and most universal way for music-lovers to understand his work. I’m resistant because I would despise diluting the artistry of DORIS. I worry that the use of certain language to describe the work in Ultimate Love Songs Collection would make it easier for this style to be either misunderstood or underappreciated, and it would be obvious to interpret a lack of refinement/structure as a lack of vision. I believe that DORIS finds his unique and raw expression of love, struggle, cravings, and dependencies through the imperfections, low-fidelity, and lack of structure on this project, making his music feel more impactful, vulnerable, relatable, and meaningful to the listener.

In July, I was introduced to how DORIS answers the question “What is a love song?” and I’ve been galvanized to listen ever since.