Sunday, February 17, 2008

A couple weeks ago, DBA Dude posted links to a couple songs by Feist, and I immediately fell in like. I'd heard her 1234 song on an Ipod commercial, and I'd sort of dismissed her as semi-confectionary variety poptart, but I find she's a much more substantial artist than that. I was wrong, and I'm so glad DBA pointed her out so I could give her a serious listen.

One song that's a clear standout on the cd for me was Sea Lion Woman, which I find absolutely captivating with its very African syncopated percussion, hand-clapping and call-and-response ostinato. I was impressed that Feist had the artistic breadth to compose such a thing. The tone clusters toward the end are thrilling rather than glancing, and Feist is something of a beast on the guitar. I really like her and she's been in constant play in me vehicle these two weeks. Give this a listen, and see how it evolves. The instrumentation is very stripped-down and yet still fleshy, somehow. More than the sum of its parts, or somesuch.


Then I learned that Sea Lion Woman was in fact composed by my most cherished Nina Simone. Listening to this performance of Ms. Simone in Barcelona in 1988, I rather think she would have been delighted by the direction Feist took the song. Well done on both.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was definitely rocking around in my chair. A great delight. Loved the hand clapping, gets your soul into the song.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Feist does do a great job on that song. She's one of ours, you know, raised in Calgary. I saw her a few years ago, when she was more mushaboomy and wasn't overly impressed, but I think The Reminder has really pushed her into new territory.

Thanks for the lovely video.

DBA Dude said...

Well you can learn something new every day here - really liked Nina's pefrormance, and you know where I stand on Feist.

breda said...

one of my favorite songs!!!