How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Feist

I give up. I tried not liking Feist’s new album, but it’s damn near impossible. There’s no good reason why I turned my back to it, except Nick Harcourt played “My Moon My Man” every day for the past two months and every hipster magazine and blog seemed to have fallen over themselves getting a blurb in on her somehow. Her previous album, Open Season was pleasant enough, but the genre exercises were forced and all over the place. There really wasn’t anything on it to make me think Feist’s follow-up would be noteworthy. When Feist started popping up all over Hype Machine, I resisted reading a single blog mention because the sheer number of posts suggested the next overblown internet thing.

But then my friend Abigail was insistent on playing “My Moon My Man” repeatedly, the song slowly crept into my head and now I’m the proud owner of her new album, The Reminder. And damn if I haven’t listened to it at least twice a day for the past week. Damn if I’m not listening to it right now, or if I don’t put it on repeat right after it ends. The Reminder just takes up space in your life as a versatile soundtrack for most moments. It’s quiet and modest enough to be a bedroom album for solitary days, or when your significant other is over, or when you’re trying to get over that person. But it’s just ambitious enough to want your attention, and considering all the similar albums that dully occupy space in Starbucks and Harcourt’s playlist, that’s not the easiest thing to do.

A lot of the whole effortless feel of the album is from the production, which awash everything in an echoey room-tone. It sounds like Feist recorded the entire album in her bedroom. If the whole thing seems contrived, well so be it. Her voice, scratchy, slightly nasally but very warm, adds to the whole intimate effect. It’s the first thing you hear, when she intones “I’m sorry,” and the breezy opening number, “So Sorry” instantly cozies up to you. “I Feel It All” is the big anthem, except the warm tones and Feist’s voice again reduces whatever pretensions it has into a very inviting pop song. And that’s followed up by “My Moon My Man.” By then, the album’s pretty much got you hooked in its effortless charm. The best way to sum up The Reminder is in Feist’s music videos, especially “1234,” which is currently my favorite YouTube clip. It probably didn’t cost more than $500 and I’m not taking into account her weird purple pantsuit. But the one-take shot and the choreography are painstaking and the result is spectacular. It took a lot of effort to make something look really modest and cool. Same with The Reminder. It sounds like it was recorded on the cheap in one afternoon. But the finished product reveals a lot more craft.

I will also admit to not listening to the entire album all the time. The Reminder tends to lose momentum when the song can’t support its modest trapping, like on “The Water.” There’s one genre exercise, a tribal choir backing her rendition of the playground song “Sea Lion Woman,” that’s way too weird, way too slight and way too Rhythm of the Saints Paul Simon to justify itself. But for an album that I initially dismissed as hipster-lite, there are no moments where I really got bored. Feist’s voice just envelopes you, and when the ballad is done right, like on “The Limit to Your Love,” she absolutely shimmers. And even though I decided I liked the album after the first three song, it’s after that one and “1234” where I felt possessed to repeat the album again and write about it. This might be the umpteenth blog to write about Feist and I’m sure there’s a chance you’re sick of reading about her. And if you avoided her until now and ignored the album’s charm, then you’re a better man than I.

Download: Feist "I Feel It All"