Customer Reviews

Reminder (Vinyl)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this album on the strengh of what I heard in a record shop. I was blown away by the incredible voice and the immediately catchy sound. The voice was familiar but I couldn't figure out why. When I discovered the artist's identity it made more sense, as I already owned her first album, but had dimissed it as being merely OK(plus there were some worryingly Sade-like tendencies).

I have had some time now to digest the album and I would say that it is a strange mix of perfection and near-misses, but the near-misses are far better than 95% of what's out there. I've since decided that the real reason her voice seems so familiar is a vague resemblance to Ricky Lee Jones rather than my remembering of her prior work.

One of the things that some people liked about her previous album was the intimacy that derived from its restrained production. Well here they've pulled out all the stops and if anything there are a couple of tracks where you actually wish they'd held back(on the reverb' say)a little. But overall I would say that this album benefits hugely from a LESS minimalist approach. While Feist has progressed with this album I'm not convinced it is all in a positive direction.

There is an amazing variety of material on this album, but perhaps not enough killer tracks. It certainly deserves some success and I suspect it will get it.

"The Reminder" is particularly difficult to classify.

Nova Scotia-born Leslie Feist has refined the sound of her hectic career thus far into 13 sparkling musical gems.

She has cavorted in Berlin with Peaches and toured with vast Toronto alt-rock outfit Broken Social Scene, but now, with "The Reminder", the 31- year-old has come brilliantly into her own. A quiet confidence fills slower numbers such as "Limit To My Love", produced by long-time collaborator Gonzales, while the summery verve of "1 2 3 4" and "I Feel It All" provides an upbeat counterbalance.

Feist's delicate voice, which she damaged as a punk-screaming teenager, beguiles throughout.

The yearning ballads are shiny happy pop songs such as "The Moon My Man" and especially "1 2 3 4". The latter is probably the catchiest thing she's ever done, a nursery rhyme style melody set to acoustic guitar, strings, banjo and a quite brilliant brass section. The sound of the summer lies within.

This is a fine album and certainly Feist's best yet.

Whether it be the haunting "Honey Honey" or the swaggering "The Moon My Man", there's guaranteed to be something of interest for all.

The Canadian music scene goes from strength to strength.

Feist's album is quite entertaining! My favorite tracks are: "I Feel It All", "So Sorry", "1, 2, 3, 4", "Sea Lion Woman", and "The Water". The packaging is also nicely put together.

Feist helped bring back heartfelt, subtle pop in her second album, "Let it Die." And in "The Reminder," this talented singer not only polishes up her sound, she expands it to include more colourful, expansive, complicated melodies that draw from jazz, pop, folk, a bit of funk, and some pretty little ballads.

The first song is an echo of her last album's style -- a gentle guitar ballad, about someone who doesn't want to fight or break up. Feist murmurs through it, "I'm sorry, two words/I always think after you're gone... We're slaves to our own forces/We're afraid of our emotions/No one, knows where the shore is."

But then she switches over to a poppier tune, delightfully jangly little guitarpop edged with toy piano. "I Feel It All" is only the first of her musical explorations: lo-fi folk, tightly wound piano jazz, delicate keyboard ballads, and some kooky electrofunk.

But Feist also includes some of what she's strongest at , namely subtle pop songs like "Limit To Your Love," full of gentle piano, harp and guitar. And sometimes she goes WAYYYYY into her experimentation zone, like "Honey Honey," which sounds like a more melodious Joanna Newsom, or "Sea Lion Woman," a deliciously mad funky avant-electronic tune. I can hear other electropop "artists" grinding their teeth at this one.

It's hard to eve find a flaw in "Reminder" -- if there's anything to criticize, it's that it doesn't sound very cohesive. But in all other respects, Feist has only grown as a musician. She takes the synth-piano-guitar triad from her previous album, and lets it bloom with greater passion and beauty, not to mention complexity.

And she allows each instrument to shine in at least one song apiece, whether it's the thumpy piano, the tinkly toy one (it sounds like wind chimes), acoustic guitar, or epic ripples of synth. There's even some blaring trumpets and rattly rambourine in some songs. And she tries out virtually all kinds of good pop music, flavoured with everything from rock to jazz to avantelectro.

Feist's voice is as adventurous as the music -- it's a pretty voice on its own, but she takes some vocal risks as well. She croons, purrs off-key, warbles a little, and even harmonizes with her own voice. And the songs she sings are simply lovely -- they're beautifully written ("Stranded in the fog of woods/Looking like the winter bird"), and full of emotion. Sometimes it's as simple as telling a lover that there's a limit to his love for her, but still "I'll go, I'll go, I'll go/Out on the road/because there is no limit... limit to my love."

Feist's third "Reminder" is an exquisite little pop gem, and though one or two of the songs don't fit, each one is a little beauty. Definitely a must-listen.

Received my CD of Feist on time. In great condition and sounds great ! Will use this service again for sure.

this cd's on a lot at work, and i have to say that it isn't that bad to listen to. if left to my own devices, i would probably only listen to one or two songs of my own volition, but the cd in itself has a nice easy flow to it. some songs can be rather melancholy if you're in the appropriate mood, but on the whole i'd say it's a light-hearted, easy-going album. at the very least worth a listening to, even in passing.

On "Mushaboom", the signature track from her 2004 breakthrough album Let It Die, Leslie Feist claimed, "It may be years until the day my dreams will match up with my pay." Now, after countless sold-out shows across the world, close to half of a million records sold, and placement in a commercial for British bed manufacturers Silentnight, it seems safe to say this NPR darling's "pay" should be satisfactory. But, while Feist may now be able to afford the idyllic hideaway she pined for in "Mushaboom", the Calgary native still wouldn't be able to enjoy its creature comforts thanks to her hectic, frequent-flyer schedule. Alas: Faraway, so close. Brimming with heartbreak, solitude, and foggy memories, Feist's "dreams" still sound distant on The Reminder, the singer's outstanding third album.
Mostly written on the road, the new LP gets its inspiration from the disconnections of non-stop, intercontinental hotel-jumping. Talking about her ephemeral lifestyle in an interview with Pitchfork last year, Feist said, "You just never set roots; you take pleasure in simple conversations, because you know you're not going to have much more than that." Though she's trekked on her own and with bands including By Divine Right and Broken Social Scene for more than a decade, the 31-year-old songwriter sounds desperate for something more than "simple conversation" here.

Unlike the half-covers/half-original split of Let It Die, every song but one was at least co-written by Feist on The Reminder. (And her buzzing take on the traditional playground sing-along "Sea Lion Woman" makes it distinctively Feist-ian anyway.) Whereas her last album's smoothed-out eclecticism could be both daunting and empty, The Reminder is equally diverse yet more full-blooded. From the indie pop of "I Feel It All" to the creeping electro-ballad "Honey Honey", the album ambles effortlessly; its musical palette is wide enough to stave off repetition yet innate enough to offer an intense cohesiveness. The record's keen combination of off-the-cuff production and no-fat songwriting is likely linked to its method: With several songs whittled down over years of performances, Feist-- aided by her usual one-named conspirators Gonzales and Mocky, along with Jamie Lidell and others-- recorded them in less than a week in a manor outside Paris. Fleeting touches from horns, glockenspiels, makeshift choirs, and other subtle accoutrements never announce themselves ostentatiously. Instead, the LP relies on a modest refinement that breaks with current singer-songwriter trends that promote infinite ambition in lieu of the basics-- melody, arrangement, feeling.

Hardly the first singer-songwriter to love, live, lose, and emote, Feist once again elevates herself above countless other diary-keeping tunesmiths with a voice that could make even Dick Cheney weep. Marked by specks of Dusty Springfield's soul, Björk's confrontational adventurousness, and Joni Mitchell's warmth, the singular allure of Feist's vocals is difficult to deny or overstate. You might hear her over cappuccino-machine hisses in Starbucks, but her direct-line moans easily cut through the biscotti muzak. And on The Reminder, her whisper-to-wail control-- exemplified by stark heart-tuggers "The Water" and "Intuition"-- is even more striking than before.

"With sadness so real that it populates the city and leaves you homeless again," coos Feist on "The Park", a desolate, lovelorn lament. The song-- with its references to a relationship torn by distance, omnipotent nature (a carefree bird can be heard mocking Feist's sadness in the background), and a hazy "past" that offers partly-forgotten flickers and flashes-- is a fitting summary of The Reminder's wounded pleas. Leery of a sixth sense, the songstress concludes "Intuition" with a question, "Did I miss out on you?"-- its insolubility packing more ache than a hundred clear-cut break-up songs. Such eternally spotty "what if?" queries needn't always strike such dour chords. On the shaggy, Broken Social Scene-esque romp "Past to Present", the refrain ("There's so much past inside my present") has the singer embracing yesteryear with a proud vitality. But no matter where she sits on love's teeter-totter-- down on the after-the-fact apology of "I'm Sorry" or aloft in heady infatuation on "Brandy Alexander"-- her philosophy-of-self is sound.

After inconclusively rifling though her personal history for 12 songs, Feist finally seems to reach an Emersonian transcendence on finale "How My Heart Behaves": "I'm a stem now...fanning my yellow eye," she sings over wafting piano and harp. Though the song reads like a zen tutorial to her own unsettled emotions, it still finishes with a query: "What grew and inside who?" What she's referring to isn't exactly clear-- and that's the point. Pasts pass. People stay, go. But finding sanctuary within half-realized dreams and faces? Timeless.

-Ryan Dombal, April 30, 2007

Well here comes Feist again, with her 2nd album (not counting the remix album). I wasn't sold on the first one, even though it was good in some spots. Reminder is just really charming and full of life and sounds, but almost more atmospheric than added sound. This is a very well crafted album and I enjoy it a lot. Some songs leave you singing along and bouncy while others leave you empty inside, with the bleakest of feelings; yet the songs have been blended so well that you aren't thrown off by the change song by song and in fact buy into it and just go with the flow of the mood. I really think this is an album that will take Feist to the next level as a song writer and hopeful gets her air play on more Canadian stations. I love mostly the background noises, they really make the songs shine. I've give this album 4.5 stars but I'm not aloud on Amazon to get half stars, so I gave it a 5 cuz it's better than a 4 but by all means even if you don't like Feist, or only like some of her songs (such as me going into this album) then take the chance and buy this album, I promise you won't reget it.

Well first off I would like to say that the music is great and I don't regret my purchase in that sense. That being said, I was very displeased with the packaging. The disc is housed in a digipak like a record which just doesn't make sense since CDs can be so easily scratched. It would have at least made sense if the CD was in a sleeve. Plus it took me the jaws of life to get the CD out so you can be sure there are plenty of scratches on the playing surface. I don't mind digipaks but at least use a plastic tray to hold the CD like many other digipaks are constructed.

I bought this CD beacuse of all the beautiful reviews I've read both here and in newspapers and I must say after
listening to it, I find it not good at all. I must make a point to listen to it once again to be sure, but I'm quite certain that this CD is to put it mildly, irritating and not fun to listen to at all. It is nothing like 'Let it Die' and has no songs anywhere near as catchy,melodious and fun as her last CD (ie..Mushaboom).

I great Artist makes a great record, and then makes even greater records and after many years of great songs, slowly fades in writing and music ability, having earned the reputation of being a musical great.

In Feist's case and as with much of today's musical artists, one great record is not gonna' cut it !

The previous reviewer is also correct about the packaging.....not user friendly and scratches the CD.