The Key Studio Sessions: The Dove and The Wolf

Paloma Gil and Louise Hayat-Camard have been playing music together since they were teenagers in Paris, and in a more formal sense as The Dove and The Wolf since 2012. But the duo came on our collective radars in a big way over the past year.

First there was word that these great singers and songwriters, both 26, had relocated to Philadelphia last autumn. Then there was their exquisite Shaking Through session in December, followed up by a meditative set for Folkadelphia back in March.

Their songwriting is reflective and dynamic, wandering serpentine paths of joy and melancholy with interlocking guitar lines, brilliant vocal harmonies and vivid lyrics. “The further you dig into yourself, the further you see into the battle,” they sing on “Going East.” “He has got a heart so big, it must be a hard heart to handle.”

This nuanced combination of sound and vision makes The Dove and The Wolf very much simpatico with Philadelphia’s Dave Hartley, who produced their stellar 2016 EP I Don’t Know How to Feel along with Nick Krill of Teen Men and The Spinto Band. It’s not so much that Hartley gave The War on Drugs treatment to these two songwriters; the vibe was already there, and lent itself remarkably well to his aesthetic.

Though it often performs as a duo, The Dove and The Wolf has evolved into a full scale band lately, with Craig Hendrix (Auctioneer, Japanese Breakfast) joining Paloma and Lou on drums and Andy Black (Laser Background) playing bass. The group’s sound launches the songs into a stratospheric dreamscape full of color and light.

For their recent Key Studio Session, we got a bonus treat: Meg Duffy, guitarist for Kevin Morby’s band (as well as her own experimental project Hand Habits) sat in on three of the performances, channeling some serious Jerry Garcia licks into the arrangements — making this session ever apt as we come to the end of The Days Between. In that spirit, if I had to add an artist to last year’s list of 20 contemporary artists every Deadhead should be listening to, it would be The Dove and The Wolf, hands down.

The band is on the road currently, and just wrapped a performance at Appleton, WI’s Mile of Music festival. They return to Philadelphia to headline MilkBoy on Wednesday, August 24th; tickets and more information on the show can be found at the XPN Concert Calendar. Below, watch The Dove and The Wolf perform “Seven Days” via VuHaus, listen to their Key Studio Session in full and download the performance here, via Soundcloud.

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