Feist Puts New Songs To Test

The hype that has built up around the singer-songwriter Leslie Feist has been hard to avoid and, for that reason, perhaps a little hard to swallow. Her third album, “The Reminder,” was released in April to rapturous praise, and now the Canadian-born musician, who goes by only her last name, is back on tour. Tonight and tomorrow night she brings her lovely moods to Webster Hall.“The Reminder” is Feist’s breakthrough. Unlike her 2005 album, “Let It Die,” half of which consisted of well-owned covers by the Bee Gees and the Canadian singer Ron Sexsmith (who collaborated on one track of the new album) among others, this album is more her own, as she has written or cowritten all but the traditional song “Sealion.” Recorded in a mansion outside of Paris, most of the tracks on “The Reminder” include performances by Feist’s live band as well as help from a few collaborators, including Jamie Lidell and Beck.Feist has earned favorable comparisons to other indie female performers such as Joanna Newsom and Chan Marshall of Cat Power, but she nurtures a more straight-ahead sound than either of those songbirds, and the commercial ambitions of “The Reminder” keep the folksy quirk at prudent levels. While this has made her palatable to a larger, latte-sipping audience, she doesn’t shy away from the artsy flourish entirely, but rather serves it in smaller doses (e.g. the subtle chirp of a bird in the background of “Park”). The selections include a soft bossa nova and a waltz, among other indie-inflected tracks that include bits of organ, vibraphone, and piano.Feist got her start collaborating with indie acts like the rock band By Divine Right, for whom she played guitar. After her 1999 album “Monarch” failed to attract much attention, Feist tried living in Paris for a short time before returning to Toronto and getting caught up in the excitement of the then-budding musical collective Broken Social Scene. Her years of playing with those vibrant folks come through on the new song “Past in Present,” on which she channels the same kind of innovative, forceful sound that has become BSS’s trademark. Lyrically, the song is much simpler than most of her tracks. With her voice intentionally showing strain, Feist repeats variations of “So much present inside my present” to claps and an electric guitar with a touch of country twang in its melody. “Limit to Your Love” is much more characteristic of Feist’s sound. Behind lines like “There’s a limit to your love / Like a waterfall in slow motion / Like a map with no ocean” a piano plays an easy listening melody and little lilts of voice murmur the refrain “I love I love I love.”Another song, “1234,” resists the kind of twee sunshine pop that perhaps would better suit “Ohhhhh you’re changing your heart / You know who you are,” as Feist delivers the lines with a smoked warble that is a whisper one moment, a full-blooded plaint the next. The song brings in horns and banjo plucks, not to mention a backing choir, decorating itself more than the songwriting and lyrics justify.The one sure thing about Feist is that she favors the stage, and the best test for these songs will be her live performance. With all their sultry nonchalance, there is something about these love songs that is hard to resist.Feist performs tonight and tomorrow at Webster Hall (125 E. 11th St., between Third and Fourth avenues, 212-353-1600).

Feist Puts New Songs To Test

Feist Puts New Songs To Test

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