Cleveland-based R&B singer Conya Doss says that her new album Still will defy some of the expectations her fans have come to have of her since her 2002 debut, A Poem about Ms. Doss. When asked what those expectations are, Doss says in a recent call from her home in South Euclid, "Well, they say neo soul, quote unquote, is supposed to be Conya Doss."

That's hardly surprising. At her Web site, conyadoss.com, the front page declares, "She is the leader of the nu soul movement/neo soul." And nothing on Still will make you think her roots aren't still in that movement that draws upon and modernizes the sounds of R&B's golden era of the '70s. She has an elegant croon that might put you in mind of Roberta Flack, and her songs, laid-back soothers that will suddenly take a stretch or a leap, like a cat ambling down a hall, recall a time when vocalists like Chaka Khan, Minnie Ripperton and Patti LaBelle were queens.

"I think I've hit a groove, but I don't want people to put me in a box," Doss says. "I want to grow and create something for everyone."

Well, that would be everyone who likes sophisticated, melodic music that explores a contradictory ebb and flow of feelings between people. She cites "Something 2Nite" and "Right on Time" as two songs that "wouldn't be considered a Conya Doss song," yet both these smooth yet sassy songs should be warmly embraced by her fans, the former needling a prospective romance who wants to sit around and watch TV ("If I see another jersey, I'm gonna scream," she sings), the latter celebrating the long-awaited arrival of true love to a strong, more emphatic beat. Despite a dash of hip-hip or dance-floor flavor here and there, Doss purrs and croons her way through Still's 14 tracks with the same warmth and style as an Erykah Badu or Jill Scott.

Doss is indeed hitting a groove, with her last CD Love Rain Down coming out less than two years ago. She says she began working with her regular producers, Myron Davis and Rodney A. Jones, late last year.

"I started coming up with ideas and working on songs not with the intention of creating an album. If there was something that inspired me to write something, I'd do that. Rodney Jones was the primary producer, and he'd send me a track and I'd start writing on it, or I'd tell him I want to write about something and he'd work on it. The same with Myron Davis. Those two producers I work with all the time."

"How Bout Us" happened after she lent her friend James Penn her recording gear and he returned it with a track on it. "I liked it so I wrote a song to it," she says.

Like many artists these days, Doss doesn't have a major-label budget or marketing machine behind her. She recorded most of Still at her house or Davis'. She collaborated with Japanese labelmate Angela Jones by sending files back and forth via the Internet. And though Still will be her third disc distributed in Japan via Dome Records, she handles her US business by herself (with Davis' help) on Conya Doss Songs Inc., juggling music-career work with her other career as a special-ed teacher in the Cleveland Public Schools. But her work life is becoming undeniably more complicated. She's performed in London, where she's developed a following and has sold enough CDs in Japan now that she's looking toward going there. And she recently recorded and performed in Switzerland with popular European artist Seven.

"We'll see how long I can do it," she says. "I won't compromise either one. But the experience of being able to travel and do what I do is effortless, not stress-free but it reduces stress. Sing, get paid for it, go back to your room and relax. Trying to do two careers running parallel, it's difficult. I'm doing everything, getting the CD mastered, getting the artwork done, making sure the posters are printed up, driving to get the posters, driving to the next city to play. It's not so much about being a control freak, it's just about getting things done."

music@freetimes.com

Conya Doss, Hubb's Groove

8 p.m. Saturday, March 29

Beachland Ballroom

15711 Waterloo Rd.

216.383.1124

Tickets: $15 advance, $18 day of show

Doss Happy to defy expectations.

Emeralds/Tusco Terror

Vaporizer/Feral Cousins

(Ecstatic Peace!)

ecstaticpeace.com

The foamy synth waves of Northeast Ohio-based drone wizards Emeralds have been extending all over the Midwest recently, plowing down audiophiles with syrupy green clouds of bong smoke. Their side-length slow-burner "Vaporizer" on the recently cut slab of wax on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label showcases their static chops in a staid form, somehow both an absent zone-out and purveying intense focus at once. As heavy as a Klaus Schultz record played at half speed in quicksand, you can almost hear the stars exploding in slow motion as the volume tips the universe one way and back. The subtle tribute to the tangerine dreaming of early '70s kraut and drone is shown here with a sky-ripping raygun edge, a new sound forged a while back but seldom heard in a context like this: sweet, sharp, gazing and glazed.

Emeralds' contemporaries Tusco Terror stack the sounds of primordial junkyard dementia on the flip side with "Feral Cousins." It's a pile of scrapes and skronks welded together with tar and wacky tack. A steady back and forth dance opens up the track, sounding like a fried loop of electrical wire squirming in a puddle of black water. It's easy enough to figure out where the title may have come from, as the electronic hisses and pops almost seem to be a back-and-forth between two wolverines mating with each other in an acid-rain downpour. Tusco's crude collages of splats and skitters give the record a certain needed balance in the wake of the meditative hum of the Emeralds side. It's something a bit deranged, yet playful. - David Imburgia