I thought my folk music days ended when Tori Amos sold out and sailed down the river of multiple personalities and bad house remixes, but I was wrong. 

I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial for the new iPod Nano, which features the first single and music video from Canadian singer Leslie Feist’s new album, The Reminder.  I fell in love with the song after seeing that, but I thought it was just one of those magical iPod commercial things, where everyone loves the song for about a month, then they’re just sick of it.  I looked up the full video on YouTube, and realized from the sheer multitude of videos and television clips available that this was a girl who had been around for a while.  It turns out that Feist is the singer for Toronto indie rock group Broken Social Scene, has appeared on the albums of electro-punk musician Peaches, and still found time to release two solo albums of her own: Monarch in 1999, and Let it Die in 2003.

While the first two solo efforts are good albums in their own way, The Reminder definitely stands out as a shining jewel in a tin crown.  Some of the more peaceful guitar and piano-driven songs call back to traditional folk music, but a few tracks in, you’re hit with the sultry electro-ballad “My Moon, My Man,” then brought down again with heart-tugging tracks like “The Water.” The already jaunty “Sea Lion Woman,” complete with hand-claps and a funky repetition in the background, was recently remixed by the electrofunk-revival duo Chromeo, thereby exploding onto the underground pop/dance scene, gaining fame and serious cred from groups and fans who are really out to find what’s good, leaving all the rest behind.

Feist’s lyrics are not unlike those of female singer/songwriters before her, heavy with love, loss, and emotion, however, her straight honesty on these subjects make her songs stand out as stories.  Often conversational and sometimes simply questioning, the lyrics on The Reminder are those lyrics you remember, they remain in your head like lines of poetry, and sometimes something happens to make you remember them as if they had been shared by a good friend a long time ago:

With sadness so real that it populates
The city and leaves you homeless again
Steam from the cup and snow on the path
The seasons have changed from present to past

After five straight years of touring with her first band The Placebo, Feist was forced to take time off from singing to recover from vocal damage.  I, for one, am grateful that she took her time, because nothing on this latest release stands out more than the vocals.  Backed by a makeshift choir of friends and family, Feist’s soothing, calm sound mixes so nicely with muted horns and sad, soft piano.  Her sound has been compared to Joni Mitchell for its warmth and Bjork for its frequent unsettling, stretching moans.

The Reminder dropped on May 1, 2007, but took some time to catch on in the U.S.  Since the iPod commercial, this album has become a huge success in the states, and I’m so glad it did, because it is such a diverse, full-blooded album, rich with so much honesty and depth.  It just feels good to sit down and listen to the whole album, and if you’re as picky about music as I am, there aren’t a lot of albums like that out there.  If you hear some of this new release over the sound of the milk steaming at Starbucks, tune in.  You’ll like it, I promise.