Gia Woods' voice is up there with some of the most seductive ones in pop history — each note carries all the allure of Britney Spears' In the Zone era and all the ferocity of P!nk's Funhouse.
Her newest single, "Keep On Coming," and its accompanying music video are both alluring and fierce, but also unexpected. These traits are fitting, considering that the song encounters the ever-enduring concept of star crossed lovers, destined by fate to keep running into each other — an inevitable event that Woods welcomes with open arms.
"I wrote it specifically about a person who I kept bumping into and realizing that their body 'keeps on coming' — meaning I've never formally met this person, but for some reason, I'm supposed to know them," Woods tells PAPER. There's a sense of destiny within the song too; the verses are outlined smoothly by reverberating keys and whooshing claps, building tension before giving way to a sublime pre-chorus. Woods asks cooly, "Do you want to undress, undress me/ Fuck me with your eyes, me with your eyes," before bumping kicks set in to frame dancefloor-ready synths.
The video for "Keep On Coming," directed by Jasper Soloff, is just as seductive as the track itself. Woods, poised warmly in a silky pinkish-red pajama suit, invites a camera slowly towards her bed while she poses restlessly. She sings longingly for her lover, as the camera pulls in and out from the hazy bedroom setting.
Woods isn't stationary for long, though; the arrival of the chorus sees her dancing against a flurry of disco lights with dancers dipping and swirling around the scene. It's a performance that Woods finds intensely intimate, telling PAPER, "I also feel that the way two people come together so effortlessly is a dance we all do in life, whether they turn out to be lovers or strangers. So the dancers represent that chemistry and how my life intertwined with this person so effortlessly."
The cherry on top — or more aptly, the syrup on top — of the video comes when Woods stares, unbothered, straight into the camera while a thick drizzle of syrup is poured down her face. It's the perfect visual metaphor for the song, a sticky-sweet moment that lasts longer than any chance encounter between potential lovers. "The video plays off the highs and lows of infatuation," Woods says. "Those beginning stages where you can't get someone out of your head, and everywhere you turn there's something there to remind you of them."
Watch the PAPER exclusive premiere for Gia Woods' "Keep on Coming," below.
Photography: Deonté Lee