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[title]Ahead of her performance at Esplanade's Mosaic Music Series on November 14, we catch up with award-winning indie folk musician Feist to talk about her making new music and her latest album, Pleasure.
Can you tell us what inspired your latest record, Pleasure?
The records I make are always a response to whatever I’m living through and experiencing at that time. In this case I had been on tour for the majority of my life, since I was 16 years old, and was feeling a chasm growing between myself and what stability I felt could help me develop in my life.
Pleasure is a lot more stripped down, raw and ‘live’ in terms of production. Why did you decide to take this approach?
Production is always secondary to the songwriting. I feel that production is most beautiful and at its strongest when it’s integrated with the story of the song – it should be determined by the song and not the other way around. I knew the arrangements needed to be more sparse and empty of any romanticism or virtuosity.
It’s been almost six years since your last album. What had you been up to to keep yourself busy?
Well, the illusion of those 6 years is that I spent about 3 of them on tour for Metals. I spent a lot of time at home with my family and then began writing and recording again.
"Facing myself with a real desire to understand what was moving me was the most important part"
You’ve said that you were feeling unhappy and quite lost for a while. How did you pull yourself out of that period?
Writing my way through it helped. Facing myself with a real desire to understand what was moving me was the most important part, though. I slowly figured out that distracting or tricking myself into temporary relief from what was a much deeper discord was pointless.
Last question: 1234 came out a decade ago. Do you ever look back and think about this song’s immense success?
Sure. It was a strange and interesting time.