Feist- Metals

It's rare to see an artist draw close to commercial success and mass acceptance after years of relative obscurity and proceed to make the best, most chance-taking album of their career. For all intents and purposes, however, that's precisely what Metals represents. After being known as “the chick who sings in Broken Social Scene” and “the chick who did that 1-2-3-4 song”, Feist has at last arrived, at least in my book, with this new record.

This isn't to say that The Reminder wasn't a work of finesse and ambition, or that reviews for Metals have been overwhelmingly positive. Indeed, The Reminder was one of those indie albums that became massively popular yet backed up its accessible songwriting with genuine artistry. Metals, by contrast, has had no big single to sell it to the public and it sits at a respectable but not overwhelming 80 on Metacritic. All of that said, I think this album's cache will only improve with time. It feels carefully constructed and meticulously arranged such that there's no “ah ha!” song or moment. Love, if it comes at all, comes gradually.

The best way I can think to explain my reaction to this album is to say that Metals is a record which initially promises the moon and eventually delivers it though it still doesn't completely satisfy. Every time I listen to it now, I can think of no obvious flaws or problems. I can, as objectively as is possible in this situation, say that Metals is the best album Feist could have made. So why haven't I completely fallen for it?

Feist, especially on Metals, reminds me of a less distant Tori Amos or a less depressed Cat Power, though the best basis for comparison is PJ Harvey's Is This Desire?, a similarly expansive and experimental record. It's the kind of album where the artist considers it their most personal work and greatest achievement yet it usually ranks low on critic and fan lists. Metals may or may not suffer a similar fate as Is This Desire?, becoming the oblique black sheep of Feist's discography, but I do know I share a similar attitude to both records insofar as I enjoy them but they never became...essential to me. Essential for the artists to make, certainly, but not vital works that I return to again and again as the years go by. Whether or not the artists would agree, to me albums like Is This Desire? and Metals feel insular and complete onto themselves. A listener is not needed, to put it another way.

While Is This Desire? went for non-traditional song structures and electronic flourishes, Metals goes for more of an ambitious orchestral/baroque singer/songwriter sound. There may be some simple delights, such as the understated 'Bittersweet Melodies' and 'Cicadas & Gulls', which is so stripped down compared to the rest of the record it seems like a demo. Yet the main story of Metals is that of reach and ambition. Layered vocal arrangements are everywhere, with 'The Circle Married The Line' sounding downright choral, and the general atmosphere of this album makes me imagine it was recorded in an abandoned cathedral in remotest England on a rare sunny day.

Metals may not end up being her greatest critical or commercial success, but it is undeniably the record where she announces, even if she may have a hit single here or there, she is still an artist first and foremost. Feist has now joined the rank of similar left-of-commercial singer/songwriter types from the past. Metals is not her version of, say, Rain Dogs or Murder Ballads, but it does demonstrate that she is still growing and evolving.

4 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Shuffling VI

OK people, you know the drill.

Shuffle!!

1) Maybe Maybe by Pavement- This is the version from the Brighten The Corners deluxe reissue, which I think is some kind of radio station/John Peel session piss take. Somehow it's even sloppier than the original lo-fi version you can hear on the Westing (By Sextant And Musket) compilation. Anyway, this kind of song wasn't made for a full band so it doesn't come off well here.

2) The Smallest Weird Number by Boards Of Canada- This short track reminds me of how fascinating this band is even on a small scale. Though a bit over one minute long, it is perfection in microcosm, packing in all kinds of interesting textures and sounds.

3) Puttin' On The Dog by Tom Waits- Ah, one of those gin joint, roadhouse blues stomps from Tom Waits. Someday there really oughta be a movie made of Charles Bukowski's work that has songs by Waits as a soundtrack. Listening to a song like this, you feel as though you're in the dark corner of a dive bar nursing a scotch and water that you bought with the last four bucks in your wallet, wondering what you're going to do now. Then a woman walks by and makes you feel something after you assumed you couldn't anymore, and hell, you figure you have nothing to lose...

4) Shooting Star by Elliott Smith- Man, if he had actually finished From A Basement On A Hill, it would've been one weird album. It already is a helter-skelter affair in its half-finished, post-humous state, but there truly is a paranoid late 60s pop/rock atmosphere that runs through it, recalling The White Album and the unfinished-until-2004 Smile project. This six minute song proves that Smith could've really made something out of a full touring band kind of sound rather than the lonely singer/songwriter stuff he's known for or the studio perfectionist, borderline orchestral pop of Figure 8 and XO. The guitar stuff around the 3:35 mark is especially good--hell, who knew he could play like that (assuming it isn't a sessionman)??

5) Back Of Your Head by Cat Power- It's too bad (for me) that Chan Marshall is caught up in 60s soul/R&B-isms and being all happy, because her earlier work is impossibly sad and beautiful. As much as I love Nico's The Marble Index, I think that Cat Power's Moon Pix is more enjoyably dower. 'Back Of Your Head' is a lonely willow of a song, its lyrics reminding me of so many bittersweet, and simply bitter, moments in my own life and romances. Also, "you hold the big picture so well/can't you see that we're going to hell?" is a chilling summation of a relationship that always gets to me. Sniff....

Video: Cat Power- He War

I really like this video, the cut-up scenes of a relationship set against some beautiful looking settings. It's always stuck with me. I even used it for a presentation in a philosophy course of Aesthetics for some reason. I get the feeling the video is trying to say something by mostly keeping the guy's face hidden until the very end but it's beyond me. It's nice to see the whole thing from the other side, where a guy is the unattainable, aloof object desire. Remind me to wear jeans and black T-shirts more often, maybe I'll get a woman like Chan Marshall to chase after me...

Album of the Week: Cat Power- The Covers Record

Is it possible that an artist's most vital, interesting work is an album of covers?? I could see this happening in the 50s and 60s, when original material was often a rarity. But not from an artist like Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, who's written and recorded a respectable body of work of her own. Yet there is some power and magic to this release that keeps me coming back again and again where I normally listen to her other albums maybe once or twice a year. Chan must think it was a great album, too, because her last album was another set of covers.

Yet 2008's Jukebox had a country/soul sound to it, the sort of earthy, 60s worshipping sound that she adopted on her last non-covers album, The Greatest. I'm no great fan of her more current music. I think once she cleaned up her act and got all "professional" she became far less of an artist and more of a pseudo-celebrity, admired more for her personality and stage presence than her music. Well, at least I've got The Covers Record to hold onto. This is the covers album as a minimalist, stripped down, transformative ideal. Chan's performance on this album is naked and shiver inducing. It is both totally vulnerable and totally in control, fragile like a wilting flower yet as powerful as a tidal wave. She accompanies herself on just a guitar or a piano, turning every one of these songs into sad, beautiful things.

The album's essential strength is revealed right away when she delivers a plaintive version of the famous Rolling Stones single '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' but omits the chorus. It is practically a different song, and the line about being on a losing streak takes on a new poignancy. Assuming you've seen V For Vendetta, you'll already be familiar with the most astonishing moment on The Covers Record, the cover of the Velvet Underground's 'I Found A Reason.' All covers are debatablely better than the originals, but like Jimi Hendrix's re-working of 'All Along The Watchtower', Cat Power's piano-and-vocals-only version feels like how 'I Found A Reason' was always meant to sound. I tend to overuse words like "haunting" and "powerful", but this one is haunting and powerful. A lot of the songs on this album give me chills when I hear them, but this one gives me, uhh, double chills. And in a perfect example of how pacing and tracklisting can make a great album even better, The Covers Record saves its most light and celebratory songs for the end, the three-track-combo of 'Paths of Victory', 'Salty Dog', and 'Sea Of Love' giving the listener a nice pick-me-up after often heavy and dirge-like music. In fact, this is one of three albums that I always end up listening to when I'm going through a period of depression. It starts out sympathizing with me but by the end it's starting to talk me out of the valley of sadness.

In answer to my original question, I do think a covers album can be the most interesting and vital work of an artist. It's rare, but The Covers Record proves it can happen. Must hear.

In Case You Missed It: Cat Power- Speaking For Trees

Growing up, I came to understand that there would be certain types of women I would always get crushes on. Maybe the term 'archetype' is more correct. Anyway, one of these was the "sad, quiet, and probably crazy girl." This archetype is as much a part of me projecting unto someone as it is their inherent qualities. At the same time, I somehow discovered Cat Power's music, and ever since then, I've always thought of Chan Marshall as the mother of all these sad little girls I would be doomed to be misguidedly attracted to.
After a handful of albums that filled out the borderlands of sadness, isolation, romantic pining, and cynicism, Cat Power's original "persona" seemed to reach perfection with The Covers Record and take another turn with You Are Free, a much poppier and livelier affair. By the time of The Greatest, Chan Marshall had mostly given up drinking, had started to finish live shows instead of nervously leaving in the middle, had begun to model (?!)...it was like watching the fragile, skinny art student I had a crush on turn into a prom queen. The absolute worst part, though, was that her music started to become awful. The Greatest is probably a great album if you never listened to Cat Power before, all its country/soul/R&B posing a sickeningly inauthentic gleam that let me know she was no longer "for" me. This was confirmed further when I saw her perform at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival, with her slick session musician band that included her dressing in ridiculous late 80s apparel (complete with fingerless gloves) and a pianist chick who chainsmoked cigarettes and so badly wanted to look cool.
So, then, Speaking For Trees marks the last time the old Cat Power was seen. In some ways, it's a perfect funeral for her old self: a two hour performance piece set in rural New York, during which she plays a series of songs in a halting, awkward manner. I find it equally spellbinding and boring, but in the end, it's as I said: the perfect funeral for her old self. It just seems like the kind of thing the mother of all "sad, quiet, and probably crazy girls" would do.
The film switches locations a few times, and the director arbitrarily messes with filters and settings to make it appear darker toward the end of the film, but there isn't much to say other than "it's static shots of Cat Power performing songs with nothing but an electric guitar, an unseen amp, and her voice." Ambience and nature sounds creep in. Between songs she stretches, itches, pushes up her sleeves, fiddles with her guitar, etc.
A lot of the time she spends facing away from the camera. Not that you can see her face that well from such distance and with bangs covering her face. Oh, Chan, you bewitching minx. How did you know I liked that?!
And then, all is as darkness. I didn't even try to listen to her new record because as I said, she's no longer for me. Goodnight and good luck, Cat Power. I'll always remember you.