|
Second Time Around Feist Let It Die (Cherry Tree/Interscope) Just ignore the title: This is the album that refuses to roll over. Paris-via-Calgary chanteuse Leslie Feist's second album, Let It Die, gets its hooks into you and refuses to leave the player, making a case for the sometime Broken Social Scene, Kings of Convenience, and Apostle of Hustle collaborator as Canadian indie rock's answer to Norah Jones. It's a snap to imagine the low-key R&B, folk, and pop on Let It Die – originally released last year on Arts and Crafts and picked up by a new Interscope boutique imprint – providing the kickback backdrop for each turn of a salad spinner, or no-pressure make-out music for well-heeled thirtysomethings, or worse, the score for a Volkswagen commercial set on Mount Tam. It's that effortlessly pleasurable – and that disconcertingly marketable, for its complete lack of irony – despite the title and early Material Girl synth fillips of, say, "Leisure Suite," and its easy embrace of sounds that would slip sensuously onto the jukebox right beside cool customers like Astrud Gilberto and Beth Orton. If her former roommate and stagemate Peaches once wanted to mime Lil' Kim, then Feist, in her secret heart, probably yearned to fill Sade's Manolos. Let It Die finds a life of its own, though, in the way Feist combines the aforementioned torchbearers' cool soul with the limitations of her own voice, squeezing every bit of naked emotion from each gently hoarse choke, ragged rasp, and last effortful push toward the end of a note. And you have to love the slightly imperfect, ragtag and occasionally, proudly synthetic quality of these songs, produced by Feist's ex Chilly Gonzales and Renaud Letang. One moment she pushes all the right buttons for a well-upholstered slow jam ("One Evening"); the next she's pulling you along with plucky, infectious pop, singing about a city kitten dreaming of life as a country mouse who only wants to settle down, collect seeds, and make babies ("Mushaboom"). Wait long enough and you'll find a Feist to love, whether she's trying on Blossom Dearie's signature "Tout doucement" or the stateside folk song "When I Was a Young Girl." Some personas, however, are more convincing than others: When Let It Die's version of the Bee Gees' "Love You Inside Out" kicks in and the mirrorball begins to spin, you come away believing Feist and company have actually improved on the original, ditching the guitar and inserting different larger-than-life keyboards and some comically squelched and scratched-up horn samples, as Feist coos, "I'm the. Girl who. Loves. You." with such fetchingly out-there, in-the-pocket vulnerability that you're ready to get wrapped up and taken home. The sleazy, queasy, yet unmistakably deeply felt Bob Fosse-ish razzamatazz seems somehow truer to the spirit of Studio 54 than the original does today – so never say die. Feist performs June 18, Grand, S.F. www.ticketmaster.com. (Kimberly Chun) |
||||