Feist

Canadian musician Leslie Feist worked in several settings before Let It Die brought a wider audience in 2004. Her history included louder band music and collaborations within a broad circle of musicians, rather than a simple route into acoustic singer-songwriter records. In Paris, work with Gonzales and Renaud Letang helped shape a sound that could be intimate without remaining entirely bare.

Let It Die placed original songs beside material by other writers. Mushaboom had a light, mobile character, while Inside and Out recast the Bee Gees song with a supple groove. The record's mixture did not depend on making everything stylistically identical. Feist's phrasing gave the sequence its continuity, finding room for uncertainty and playfulness inside carefully formed melodies.

The Reminder followed in 2007, including My Moon My Man, I Feel It All and 1234. The last song's exuberant arrangement and widely seen video helped it travel far beyond the album's initial audience. Elsewhere, the record could become much more exposed, revealing a singer attentive to the expressive possibilities of a breath, a pause or an abruptly roughened note.

Metals in 2011 changed the balance again, with denser instrumental textures and a stronger sense of musicians responding together. The Bad in Each Other and How Come You Never Go There resist the idea that her music can be reduced to a light pop charm. Feist's records often reward the moment when an attractive surface gives way to something stranger, less settled or more physically forceful underneath.