[MUSIC] Feist, Let It Die
May. 21st, 2005 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI've been listening to Feist's album Let It Die quite a lot lately.
Feist--the stage name of the musician Leslie Feist, noted until recently for her membership of the group Broken Social Scene--recorded her second album in Paris, collaborating with leading French musicians and drawing upon French chanson and jazz and indie rock. The album was first released in France, only later making its way across the Atlantic to Canada. Last year, Now gave Let It Die an ecstatic review. This year, Let It Die won the New Artist of the Year and Best Alternative Album prizes at the Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent to the United States' Grammys.
Her soft supple voice works wonderfully with her varied arrangements. I'm fond of the gentle and gleeful humour of Mushaboom and its lyrics ("in the meantime I've got it hard/Second floor living without a yard/It may be years until the day/my dreams will match up with my pay"), the romance of the shuffling title track ("Let it die and get out of my mind/We don't see eye to eye or hear ear to ear./Don't you wish that we could forget that kiss?/And see this for what it is--that we're not in love."), and the bossa nova of "Gatekeeper." Feist's choice of covers is excellent: Françoise Hardy's "L'amour ne dure pas toujours," Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart," best of all a suave strong RNB cover of the Bee Gees' "Inside and Out" that makes me think rather more highly of the Bee Gees than I ever did before.
This album has managed the impossible: I think that I'm becoming a desperate romantic under its influence.
Go, listen and buy on your own.
Feist--the stage name of the musician Leslie Feist, noted until recently for her membership of the group Broken Social Scene--recorded her second album in Paris, collaborating with leading French musicians and drawing upon French chanson and jazz and indie rock. The album was first released in France, only later making its way across the Atlantic to Canada. Last year, Now gave Let It Die an ecstatic review. This year, Let It Die won the New Artist of the Year and Best Alternative Album prizes at the Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent to the United States' Grammys.
Her soft supple voice works wonderfully with her varied arrangements. I'm fond of the gentle and gleeful humour of Mushaboom and its lyrics ("in the meantime I've got it hard/Second floor living without a yard/It may be years until the day/my dreams will match up with my pay"), the romance of the shuffling title track ("Let it die and get out of my mind/We don't see eye to eye or hear ear to ear./Don't you wish that we could forget that kiss?/And see this for what it is--that we're not in love."), and the bossa nova of "Gatekeeper." Feist's choice of covers is excellent: Françoise Hardy's "L'amour ne dure pas toujours," Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart," best of all a suave strong RNB cover of the Bee Gees' "Inside and Out" that makes me think rather more highly of the Bee Gees than I ever did before.
This album has managed the impossible: I think that I'm becoming a desperate romantic under its influence.
Go, listen and buy on your own.
