"The Grammys, and the magnitude of that spotlight, it wasn't a place where I felt at home. Like what I do doesn't really happen there," Feist says as she sits on the patio at her downtown Manhattan hotel. "It's such a potent and brief moment, and it doesn't really speak to the truth of what touring and being a musician is. It's mostly fanfare, inflated and very intense. I wasn't feeling very comfortable in that kind of setting."
Now Feist is releasing fourth album Metals, the follow-up to her 2007 breakthrough The Reminder. Her new album is darker in tone, but still has that otherworldly, mystical quality that made her an original voice.
"It's just heading into a much more personal and bold and more uncompromising direction, taking all kinds of risks, which I respect," says her longtime collaborator Chilly Gonzales, one of the album's producers and songwriters. He compares her new album to territory occupied by Kate Bush and PJ Harvey - ambitious, daring, but most importantly, a new direction from The Reminder.
It would have been tempting to try. While the Canadian singer already had a name and critical acclaim, it wasn't until she decided to let Apple use a clip of her video for the whimsical 1234 for an iPod Nano ad that the mainstream caught on - she even sang the tune on Sesame Street. The clip, which featured dancers in brightly coloured outfits, swaying with a sparkly dressed Feist as if it were a scene from a Broadway musical, entranced millions.
Looking back, Feist isn't sure she would now agree to be part of of a commercial. "When I made that decision, I was in a really different place and I really didn't know; like, no one could imagine that would happen. It was incredible in a lot of ways as well, but it's put me in circumstances now where I wouldn't necessarily feel that that is something that could be helpful," she said.
"I landed somewhere different than I started, so now I would have very different perspectives on all of that, for sure."
When the whirlwind was over, Feist hit a wall. Including her tour for The Reminder, she had been on the road for seven years. So she retreated, taking about two years off - though she collaborated with friends like Canadian group Broken Social Scene and put together a documentary of The Reminder era, entitled Look at What the Light Did Now.
"It's so funny, I almost don't even remember having time off," she said, laughing.
"I didn't do anything specific except not go to a different town every night. I just did everything you can't do while you're moving. I planted a little garden and I adopted some dogs. I got a place in the country and just hung out in the woods a lot ... It took about a year and a half of just floating before I got interested in reframing things, which is ultimately what songwriting is."
Some of the new album frames things in a period of turmoil and loss. Songs like How Come You Never Go There and Comfort Me seem to describe the end of a romance. Musically, she veers somewhat from The Reminder with songs that seem weightier. While she's appreciative of the new audience The Reminder brought to her, she knows what most people discovered was a fragmented version of herself. With Metals, she's hoping to fill in the picture.
LOWDOWN
Who: Feist, Canadian singer-songwriter and one-time iPod jingle star
What: New album Metals
When and where: Laneway Festival, Silo Park, Auckland, Monday Jan 30
*Questions about Laneway? Ask your question direct to co-promoter Ben Howe in our live chat here.
- AAP
