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Photo by Thais Aquino

There’s a quiet kind of alchemy that happens when artists like Doe and Maiah Manser meet. Their similarities outweigh any differences, and small talk becomes a table for deep revelation. Today, we premiere Doe’s music video “Forgiveness Is,” alongside a reflective artist-to-artist conversation. 

With the release of her album Living Through Collapse, Doe returns not just as a songwriter, but as a vessel for transformation. Her first full-length since 2018’s Soft Power, the record hums with an ancestral wisdom and modern ache: in Doe’s words, it’s a mycelial network of sound connecting creatives from all over the world. 

The album’s latest offering is an exceptionally tender live performance of “Forgiveness Is.” The video finds Doe surrounded by a harpist, flautist, bassist, and a constellation of voices. The result sounds like freedom breathing. 

For the premiere, Doe sits down with fellow conduit, Maiah Manser — a rising, LA-based producer, artist and vocalist whose captivating work bridges the spiritual and the digital. A recent fixture on both St. Vincent's and Allie X’s tours, Maiah’s live shows are a transcendent burst of colorful expression, ethereal beats, and silky synths. With a distinct vision and skill set, Maiah is certainly one to watch – her next single "Feeling It All” will be released in November 2025.

Together, Doe and Maiah explore the threads that tie their worlds: forgiveness, the collapse and rebirth of systems, social media’s strange intimacy, and the ways music continues to serve as a healing modality for both artist and listener.

Enjoy their chat below:  

How has forgiveness helped shape you as an artist?

Doe: Forgiveness has made me more free, and I think the depth of my work as an artist is proportional to how free I feel inside. In my experience, forgiveness is a key that can unlock many doors that appear sealed, including the door to our hearts, and that is the genesis of the song “Forgiveness Is.” I was very blocked before I got into writing this record – so devastated by the state of the world and all the harms in it – and then I decided to do a full inventory around forgiveness, working on making amends and also offering grace where I was holding anger, and the light slowly started streaming back in and the music came too. It’s an endless practice and so powerful.

Doe: I am curious how creating music has offered you healing in your personal journey?

Maiah Manser: For me, any sort of creation has been cathartic. Making music, writing lyrics and singing them with my whole chest has always been the best way for me to work through my emotions. It’s a necessary part of my existence.

Doe: Songwriting has always been a safe confessional for me, a space to name things that felt unspeakable. My aunt used to tell me that “we are as sick as our secrets,” and I think the very act of articulating an experience is a pathway to moving through it. I perceive music as a master form of alchemy because we take our most challenging experiences and wrap them in song, and both the songwriter and the experience are transformed by that process. In the container of a song, the experience now carries the potential to offer resonance and value to someone else, who hears the lyrics and knows they are not alone in their struggle. 

Doe: Is there an object you like to have nearby while writing?

Maiah Manser: No, but if I’m writing with someone it’s my sample library, haha

Doe: Always a candle. 

Doe: I know we both share Slavic ancestry and have shared interest in that. I am curious to ask if connection to your ancestry has any influence on your artistry?

Maiah Manser: Most definitely. I have found a lot of inspiration from slavic myths and imagery. I am often inspired by stories and myth for my songs as well. I also got really into different slavic style singing a little while back. I loved it so much that I found a sample of a folk melody that inspired the creation of my newest song “Who Are You?”. I ended up having to replace the sample with my own voice, but the essence and melody is still there.

Doe: I have definitely been on a deep dive of ancestry over the last year, for a multitude of reasons that are beyond the scope of this interview. One thing that has really helped me is imagining my ancestors at my back before I step into being on stage, a practice that I learned from Staci Haines in her “Politicized Somatics” training. I find that fortifying. I also have been exploring in this record how we have inherited generational harms that is our work to heal. On songs like “For All the Generations” and “Omen,” I explore those themes more explicitly. 

Doe: Both of us have had success growing our audiences on social media, especially TikTok. What is your relationship to social media currently?

Maiah Manser: Social media is a funny little beast. Sometimes it makes you feel on top of the world and sometimes it’s like a troll under the bridge. I am still trying to find a personal balance with it, but I’ve found the best thing to do is share what you love and nothing else really matters.

Doe: My relationship to social media has changed a lot because I have mostly used it in the last few years to stay informed politically, so it has been difficult to make the switch to sharing about my music again. I don’t take for granted the responsibility and privilege of having a platform and so I am trying to strike the balance between sharing my art and also platforming the brave voices in the world speaking truth to power, especially in this moment of rising fascism and censorship.  

Doe: What is the most important self-care practice you follow?

Maiah Manser: Since life became a whirlwind, self care has been difficult. However, I have found that a strict morning routine with a glass of water first thing, then a full breakfast and last comes coffee really stabilizes me the most. Ever since I learned a while back that women’s hormones can be thrown off balance to have coffee first, and I’ve found this small change in my routine to be life changing. 

Doe: Aiming for 8 hours of sleep. 

Doe: We both lived together at an earlier moment in our careers in which we were doing everything ourselves, artistically speaking – writing, producing, booking shows, etc. I remember us both drawing the artwork for our respective singles in the house together. What is something that you have outsourced that feels supportive?

Maiah Manser: Haha I remember this! I would love the time to draw an album cover again to be honest. I’m definitely 10 times busier than when I was independent, but being able to work with a team and outsource gives me the ability to release projects 10 times faster.

Doe: I made a music video for my most recent single with AnAkA and it was an amazing experience. It felt expansive to hand the song to her and fully trust her vision to animate the message of the music in a new way. That level of aligned creative collaboration has been very rare in my experience, so I recognize how precious it is. We made a music film that speaks to finding the dance amidst our grief, and to answer the calling towards both action and love right now in a world that’s composting many of its structures. 

Doe: It’s a very chaotic time in the world. How, if at all, has this informed the art you are making?

Maiah Manser: Everything informs the art we make. The state of the world always directly affects art and culture. 

Doe: I made a record called Living Through Collapse, which speaks directly to this upheaval, and hopefully offers songs that provide space to process the polycrisis. I believe artists have a responsibility to reflect our times and to steward the culture that we want to see. It’s ours to define. Music can help build momentum for social movements. I have tried to create a body of work with these songs that allows a place to grieve the world as we have known it and also plant seeds of possibility for what could be. 

Doe: Given the amount of grief in the world currently, what are you noticing about how that affects live shows?

Maiah Manser: Hmm, I like to focus more on the joy of everything. Especially as a queer woman in a lesbian relationship, feeling joy, sharing that joy, getting weird on stage, screaming loud and being a wild woman feels like my act of resistance. I have an anthemic song called “WOW,” that’s a f you to anyone who thinks they can take away your power. During that song I’ve started having the audience scream “WOW” with me, and they really SCREAM it. It’s so cathartic and freeing to scream with a huge group of people. My favorite thing though, is at the end of the show I create an audience choir. I give everyone a note, I have them all sing it together and record/sample them live. Then their voices sing with me for the entire last song. It’s so cool to get strangers singing/working together. No matter where I’m at in the world, this works and it’s a reminder of the beauty and joy that still is always there.

Doe: I think it’s never been more important for people to gather together; it’s so healing. There is a polarization narrative that is being amplified online, one that thrives off of the isolation that began in Covid and has only grown. When we come together, particularly when we come together to share music, there is a harmonizing effect that is irresistible. Music carried the medicine of unity, of getting everyone nodding their head to the same rhythm, of landing in a group frequency. I also think that there is something to be said about processing heavier emotions in a group, and music offers a space for that. 

Doe: How do you center yourself before a show?

Maiah Manser: I need to bounce and stretch, but the funniest thing I do is look in the mirror and tell myself “You’re the best person for this job” haha. I also saw Lady Gaga live recently. I was so inspired that sometimes now I just close my eyes and literally imagine Lady Gaga, then I’m ready to go on stage haha

Doe: I set intentions that my music be of service. If I am playing with a group, we hold those intentions together and share a group meditation before performing. 

Doe: What are you currently learning from your path as an artist?

Maiah Manser: Letting go of the outcome and thinking I can please everyone. Also, a big part of my journey has been relaxing into constant change.

Doe: I am learning how to be brave. I am learning that the more I lean into saying the thing I am frightened to say out loud, the more resonance I experience with other people. We are living at a time when our freedom of expression is very much at risk and artists have a major role to play in courageously resisting that. 

Doe: Do you carry anything with you while touring that helps ritualize your shows or anchor yourself?

Maiah Manser: I don’t!

Doe: I carry a little altar that I set up everywhere I go. It helps me anchor my music as a living prayer.

Doe: What is the most recent piece of advice you have received that has been helpful to you?

Maiah Manser: Recent advice, I’m not so sure. I can say that the best piece of advice I’ve gotten was years ago when I told this old man that I get nervous before I perform. He said to me “but isn’t performing what you love the most? Why would you spend any moment living in anxiousness and fear not enjoying the moment when you’re doing what you love most in life?” 

Doe: After I released my record, I had a very extensive surgery for endometriosis. I was sharing with a friend that I felt incapacitated in my ability to share about my record while recuperating and she really encouraged me to share my recovery story, and to perceive that as not separate from the record I made about collapse. To recognize that the collapse I was experiencing in my body was part of the writing of the record and that so many people struggle with this illness, silently. I shared about it on social media and was very touched by how many people had experienced the same disease and the conversation it opened up. 

Doe: This is a fun last one – Maiah, our friendship has always been mystical and I think the path of the artist often is filled with magical and unexplainable encounters. Have you had any recent psychic experiences?

Maiah Manser: Ok there IS something magical that’s been happening for me over the last year. Whenever I’ve been feeling really low, incredibly burnt out, overwhelmed or questioning my entire existence it is almost always a given that I will see a hummingbird. A. Live. Hummingbird. If I’m inside, I’ll look up just in time to see one fly by the window. If I’m outside, I’ll see one fly right by me, or I’ll look up and see one sitting on a power line, as though watching over me. It could be magic, it could be nothing, but it feels like magic because in that moment I feel joy and as though everything will be ok. Let it be known, I’ve even asked my girlfriend if she’s seen all the hummingbirds around our house/neighborhood and she said she’s rarely ever seen them. So, I’ve let it remain as an unexplainable and magical little piece of my existence.

Doe: Over the last year and a half, I have had 4 dreams about different friends who are pregnant and told them about it before they knew that they were!