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Feist Touches on Love and Loss in new LP 'Pleasure'
As black and white as it is, love, possibly the most universal and visceral emotion in the universe, is inescapable. Many artists find it the commanding topic in their albums and this is no exception to Feist’s 5th LP release, Pleasure.
However, as conventional as the topic may appear, Canadian artist Leslie Fiest, both a performing member of the indie rock outfit Broken Social Scene as well as launching her own solo career, has tackled the traditional theme of love and heartbreak, with tales of bumpy past and lost loves, punctuating all the ups and downs in-between.
Opening the album is the title track ‘Pleasure’, with its background the source to the rest of the album’s exploration. Fiest speaks about how ‘She was raw and so were the takes’. Her focus on rough and organic production is most evident as the track strips melodies back to their basic bones, without a word of warning for a most intense impact. ‘Pleasure’ is dominated by a sudden and isolated grunge chord that cracks onto the scene, reflecting her lonesome and rocky state.
Her track construction is placed within an intensely inward-looking scope, backed by an ever-changing soundscape; as one track builds up its genre, the next wipes it away and delivers its own. The vein of the record split as its lifespan rides out. From dampened ballads to folk injected recipes, pangs of earthy rock and tracks rippled with blues.
‘Get Not High Get Not Low’ describes the epic mood swings following a breakup, lyrically as candid as ‘I was living in extremes’ mirrored by the tracks altering melodies swinging with the highs and lows, bursts and shudders to capture these moments.
Feist dictates through her own experiences how the human condition can become unhinged through the loss of love, but also dragged back up through determination and self-care.
Feist goes on to exercise her fluttering vocals and poetic ability in ‘A Man Is Not His Song’. Pigeon-holed love and how we hope to slip into the worlds of others who just aren’t our fit, is the aching notion laced throughout this throbbing track, and most notably in her lyrics: ‘Cause a man is not his song, And I’m not a story, But I wanna sing along, If he’s singing it for me’.
Finally, the tone lurks into a state saturated in 60’s blues vibes that sweats intoxication and a Lana Del Ray-esque sensual desire. Feist offers us a contradictory state of dependence and self-reliance in ‘Im Not Running Away’, offering yet another stance on love.
Feist’s label has described the album as “an exploration into emotional limits”, which is definitely its finest quality. With an ever developing soundscape and her beautiful, flickering vocals, Feist has created a Love album that is hard to put down.
Feist is also set to kick off her tour this coming Friday in the US before trailing over to Europe, including two London dates. Get your dates & Tickets HERE.
