LP, Reissue
Arts & Crafts (2015) CA
In January 2011, Feist and longtime collaborators Chilly Gonzales and Mocky arrived in Toronto to arrange 12 songs that would become her fourth studio album, Metals. Metals' songs range from low rumbling and moody ambiences to brutal and intense, as if it sonically maps the fog rolling in and the resulting cracking of thunder. "There's a lot more chaos and movement and noise than I've had before," Feist says. "I allowed for mistakes more than I ever have, which end up not being mistakes when you open things up and make room for them. It was about un-simplifying things and leaning on these masterful minds I have so much respect for. We were sort of testing the air, like a sea captain licks his finger to see which way the wind is coming from. It was less Brill Building and more naturalistic."
Ultimately, Metals' aesthetic has a deliberate patience, elemental wildness and natural beauty that echoes Feist's new found observations on time. "I read a National Geographic article about soil and modern farming," she says. "The point is for food to grow, the point isn't for it to grow all at once and never grow again. Soil does its job, but unless you let it rest it can't regenerate its own minerals and do the same thing again. You just have to let it lay there under the sun, dry out, get rained on and be still a little while." That she did. And now she's back.
Metals was released October 4, 2011, and celebrates its 10 year anniversary!