Warped Tour - Review

by Tina Whelski

Vans Warped Tour combed Randall’s Island August 13 with My Chemical Romance stealing the scorching day’s spotlight. The performance of Gerard Way (vocals), Mikey Way (bass), Ray Toro (guitar), and Bob Bryar (drums) on Saturday showed why the band’s comic book-colored emo/rock has been catapulting them to well-earned superhero status. Preparing for their first headlining tour in September the band played “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” “Helena,” and “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid” among others from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. The band’s New Jersey brethren, Senses Fail, also offered a powered performance with singer Buddy Nielsen delivering his usual consuming rock-wrenched melodies. Other highlights from the sold-out lineup included Hawthorne Heights, Funeral For A Friend, Transplants, The Offspring, Dropkick Murphys, Atreyu, Fall Out Boy and My American Heart.

Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly 8/31/05.

My Chemical Romance photo by Tina Whelski.

My Chemical Romance video for "I'm Not Okay."

Lollapalooza - Review

Chicago’s Grant Park/
July 23-24

Lollapalooza returned this year, transforming itself from a touring music festival to a one-site, two-day affair July 23-24 set in Chicago’s Grant Park. Showing the same tenacity he became known for when he pioneered the alternative music festival in 1991, Lollapalooza founder/organizer and former Jane’s Addiction front man Perry Farrell revised the event to adapt to the concert industry’s changing climate and to regain control over the integrity of the Lolla experience.

Over 60 acts lined up for the revived showcase, with stellar live performances by The Arcade Fire, The Bravery, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Louis XIV, Drive-By Truckers, The Killers, Weezer, Primus, and Farrell’s new project, Satellite Party, a nebulous, satisfying musical experience with former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt and No Doubt’s Tony Kanal on bass.

In introducing The Arcade Fire, Farrell explained they were an example that it’s still possible to be original. In restoring Lollapalooza Farrell proved there are always alternate paths towards that goal.

Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly 8/10/05.

Weezer photo by Tina Whelski

Tori Amos - Interview

by Tina Whelski

The breezy, sensual songs of Tori Amos’ ninth, and latest album, The Beekeeper (Epic) ride the drift of an impending storm with honey sweet vocals and a storyline that looks at mending the historical rift that divides a woman’s sexual and spiritual self. In writing the music Amos draws from both her own emotional impulses and the rhythm of the world as she sees it at this moment. Days before her Summer of Sin solo tour began Amos offered a synopsis of The Beekeeper and shared her creative process, which she also chronicles in a new book Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, co-written with music journalist Ann Powers.

WOMANROCK: On The Beekeeper you continue to satiate your worldly curiosity and desire for self-discovery through song. How has your music evolved since Little Earthquakes (13 years ago) and do you feel you approach your instruments differently on The Beekeeper?

TORI AMOS: When I can listen to something a few years later, I’m able to be more objective. When I’m in the thick of it, I’m making choices based on what is right at the time and you have to trust your instincts and you have to be clear on your vision. For instance, I was listening to Choir Girl over the last couple of days because I’ve been learning a few songs for the tour and I hear that album really differently now than when it was occurring (laughs). I’m able to step back and you have a sense of detachment, which I think is really healthy—not when you’re trying to finish it though. If you’re too detached, you’re not passionate enough.

WOMANROCK: True. As we grow we often don’t notice differences in ourselves until we look back in retrospect.

AMOS: I like to use the word “changing” because at each time that an album is created, that reflex is where you are and just because some people are more drawn to a “fiery you” and some people are more drawn to an “intellectual you,” it doesn’t’ mean that they’re both not valid. They’re both valid—all of the albums are—but they come from a different place each time and I think that’s what’s essential. I don’t think any different than a visual artist; I don’t think you can say one installation is more important than another installation. I think that it might have had more impact on the masses at a time, but they’re all responding to the changes that are occurring and you couldn’t really super-impose one ten years later if you follow me. It sometimes works because of the time at which it comes out.

WOMANROCK: Lyrically you’ve commented that you write so that people can find themselves in your music, not you? You focus on that a lot in your new book too.

AMOS: In the book I call it giving people a “backstage pass’ into the creative process. When the songs come, sometimes they come in two-bar phrases and sometimes they come more complete. What I am always trying to do is to translate them in a way that people can develop their own relationships with the songs. If you ‘re too literal sometimes you anchor a song into space and time in a way that it doesn’t allow it to take flight. I try to work more with parables and prose as a songwriter than a style of lyric writing where there’s no room for interpretation. I’ve always been drawn to songs where word association and wordplay are part of what that artist does. Sylvia Plath was always very much like that and Anne Sexton. I was inspired by their work as poets. I’m trying to translate what I call “essences.” They don’t have arms or legs, but it’s more like light filaments. They don’t look like us when they’re complete. They look more like light structures. That’s really what it’s all about.

WOMANROCK: Giving people such license for imagination in your work, are you surprised sometimes when you hear how your songs are interpreted?

AMOS: I find it pretty intriguing because it’s not as if what it means to them is wrong. It’s not. That’s their perspective and the songs have always wanted people to have their own relationships with them and I have my own relationship with them, so I’m able to have my opinion.

WOMANROCK: I would think that’s an interesting turn when you’ve created something so personal and you put it out there to witness people cling to it with a different attachment.

AMOS: This is where you really have to let the songs go. You have to let them go and make their friendships and make their enemies with people. The songs are very capable of having their own lives (laughs). They’ve made it very clear to me. It is a paradox where on one hand you’re a co-creator with them and it feels as if there are pieces of my own mosaic of life within them that I really don’t have authority over. I have to allow them to go and be. The authority that I do have is how they’re presented and I try and work with them. A lot of times that has to do with what is going on globally, what is going on in our world at this time and that means the sound of it, the melody choices, and rhythmic choices. Sometimes it’s very much about chronicling time and the music is I would say a lot more involved than people give it credit. A lot of times people talk about the lyrics because it’s more tangible but the curds are very much in the music.

WOMANROCK: Applying your process specifically to The Beekeeper, combined with the sense of “urgency” you felt for this album, could you discuss bringing it all together.

AMOS: Because the right wing movement is not covert any more, but overt, I felt that it was essential to go after certain ideologies and teachings. One major one has been that a woman was responsible for getting us all chucked out of paradise. Therefore the garden allegory that The Beekeeper contained was core, no pun intended, but I felt that we needed to create gardens that represented different emotions that weren’t presided over by the patriarchy. Therefore on the album “Tori” goes to God’s mother, Sophia and asks her how to combat the violence and destructiveness of this time and Sophia basically says, “Tori, you must eat of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, unlike my son suggested.” So Tori eats of the fruit and each song is what she begins to have to look at in her own life. Some of her relationships are very loving and some of them are laced at the root with betrayal.

She begins to create this pantheon of songs once she begins to become conscious and that’s really at the root of The Beekeeper. The marriage of sexuality and spirituality is also very much part of what’s occurring here—a marriage within the being, not a marriage between male and female outside the being. The honeybee represented sacred sexuality in the ancient feminine mysteries and because Christianity has taken such a hold, as a minister’s daughter, I felt like we needed to go after this concept.

I did a lot of research reading the Gnostic Gospels written by Elaine Pagels discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. I also read the gospel of Mary Magdalene, which was discovered in the late 19th century and I began to realize that there was another element to Christianity that was not included by some of the early fathers of the “proper” church. Women and their roles had been diminished and we had become subservient and subjugated in the new church. I was concerned because of some of the choices that were being made for leaders around the world—religious as well as political—that I felt were proponents for the ideology of the patriarchy opposed to the ideology of Jesus, which included women as equals.

If you read the Gnostic Gospels you discover that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, but a “prophet.” Maybe that was not “profitable” to the fathers who were creating the church, because how do you get power? Well the patriarchy’s view is you divide and conquer. The greatest way to divide and conquer is within the self, so when you divide sexuality and spirituality within a woman, she is completely and absolutely divided, therefore, The Beekeeper was very much about bringing these paradoxes together into the garden, into one being. The garden’s reflective of a woman’s body. That is the back-story.

Originally posted on WomanRock.com August '05.

Tori Amos performing "The Power of Orange Knickers."

Dave Matthews Band - Concert Review

Randall's Island, NY
7/31/05

Billed as the "Island Getaway" at Randall's Island, Sunday's Dave Matthews Band show fulfilled its promise of escapism with musical virtuosity and a selection of radio hits, live favorites and offerings from the band's latest album, "Stand Up."

The group played with the tightness of an ensemble that has jammed together for 14 years. The grass-roots-minded superstars shared and traded improvisational spaces, navigated mood-changing tempos and explored grooves with spontaneity and excitement.

The band opened with "Every Day," on which singer-guitarist Dave Matthews broke away from his acoustic guitar and gravelly voice to raise his fist and squeak his falsetto for emphasis, singing, "All you need is love."

With the tone set, the socially conscious performers reeled off a series of highlights, including "What Would You Say," which hails back to the band's 1994 debut album, "Under the Table and Dreaming."

Classically trained Boyd Tinsley ripped his bow back and forth across his violin strings, dreads flying as he swirled, absorbed in rhythm. Tinsley grabbed the spotlight again during "Ants Marching" with the distinctive riff that helped catapult the tune to commercial success. Matching Tinsley's hillbilly funkiness was the gusty saxophone playing of LeRoi Moore.

Drummer Carter Beauford, Moore's onetime neighborhood jazz cat in Durham, N.C., tiptoed busily on his kit. Beauford is not a power drummer, but he is a "powerful" drummer. His fusion background and open style offered him a range of melodic sounding beats and rhythms. Dave Matthews Band's signature jumpy, slick bop comes courtesy of Beauford's choices from the band's co-pilot seat. Beauford smiled as he divided sixteenth notes, calmly blowing bubbles with his chewing gum amid the pulses.

On "When the World Ends," Matthews clutched his frets, eyes squeezed tight as he succumbed to that musical tic he gets in his legs; pivoting on the right foot, he alternately shakes the left -- a truly enviable approach to time-keeping. During "Dream Girl," Matthews' animated style continued as he arched an eyebrow, marking select lyrics with heightened emotional importance.

The new album's title track was accompanied by steel guitarist Robert Randolph, whose Family Band performed earlier in the day. Looking for an audience ready to testify, Randolph entered into an extended version of the song and then launched into a fiery version of "All Along the Watchtower." Overpowered by sound, Randolph kneeled to play, while Matthews and bass protege Stefan Lessard surrounded their guest with complex, uplifting, percussive riffs.

Originally published in The Hollywood Reporter 8/2/05.

Perry Farrell - Interview

by Tina Whelski

It's The Doors’ Ray Manzarek on organ and Robby Kreiger on guitar and you can hear the hypnotizing riff of “Touch Me” build until suddenly the song ignites. “Come on, come on, come on, come on, now touch me baby,” sings Perry Farrell. Huh? Perry Farrell? No, the former Jane’s Addiction front man is not replacing The Doors of the 21st Century’s Ian Astbury. Farrell is just joining his heroes for three tunes during Decades Rock Live, a new live concert series that’s taping to premiere on VH1 Classic in September.

Presenting legendary performers alongside today’s newest artists, the first concert will feature The Doors of the 21st Century with Robby Kreiger, Ian Astbury and Ray Manzarek. Special guests include Macy Gray, legendary rock guitarist Pat Travers, the original Vanilla Fudge, Antigone Rising, and Farrell.

Perry Farrell talks about the upcoming show, the return of Lollapalooza and his new project Satellite Party.

AW: Decades Rock Live is a new live concert series that pairs celebrated artists who have influenced popular music over the last 50 years with acts who have been inspired by them. What do you think of the concept and how do you fit into this first episode?

FARRELL: I love the idea of different generations of musicians getting together to play music, especially important musicians. It would be like if you have a great quarterback or a great center on a team and a draftee comes in. It’s going to take him a few years to get up to that level, but he’s got at least this legendary player who can tell him the inside things and what to look for. In the world of music, there are so many pitfalls and at the same time there are so many wonderful places to go as a musician. Just to be able to get the rub from The Doors; you don’t get any more integrity than the Doors. To be able to play with them and ride on their sound is going to be an experience. You probably couldn’t put into words the benefits that I will get and the other people will get from just being around them.

AW: What will you sing?

FARRELL: “People Are Strange,” “Crystal Ship” and “Touch Me.”

AW: With Lollapalooza becoming a destination festival this year, will you comment on how your revised format strengthened it and why you picked Chicago?

FARRELL: I guess you have to go back probably seven years when certain corporations were buying promoters around the country. What they did at the same time was bought property and form-fitted tours into the property using the promoters that they pretty much owned. What this did for the concert business, for myself as an independent promoter, was rather than being able to go around the country and meet different promoters and say to them, find us a great location, we really had no options but to play in amphitheatres. These amphitheatres came with deals for vendors that were pre-cut. There wasn’t much room for us to bring in the type of food and the type of extra things that we like to present to the audience.

It also price-fixed the package. Let’s say a promoter said, "Hey you can come play in my venue and I’ll pay you so much." Because there was a monopoly around the country on the venues and the promoters, the price fix was getting lower and lower and therefore the quality of the festival was beginning to suffer. Rather than being able to say, “Hey, let’s do something crazy and build a technology gaming system,” if the overseeing corporate promoter didn’t want to pay for that, you had no money for it. It was basically just turning into like a radio show. They would pay you what they felt they wanted to pay you for the acts. You didn’t even have room to negotiate that, so a lot of times, you’d basically be doing it for free. I hate to admit it, but I have made so little money putting Lollapalooza together. It got less and less and less to where the last year we were going out, there really wasn’t a chance to make any money at all because the promoter had us by the balls.

So what I decided to do is look for our own location. I was very lucky and found a private backer, yet another independent promoter, one of the very few left in the country. There’s probably less then five…What we did was we teamed up and we looked for our own location and decided to refine Lollapalooza. Lollapalooza was in its day, the first traveling festival. In 1991 it started all the other traveling festivals. It was a wonderful concept and the country really loved it, but it was a different time. There was not the monopoly that there is today, so we changed the model and we went to a location and built it ourselves and you know what? It has proven to be a very good idea.

AW: After last year’s cancelled show, how excited are you to have it back?

FARRELL: It was beyond my expectations. I honestly didn’t think I would ever do another Lollapalooza. As you know, the way things are with the monopolies and the corporations, once a tragedy happens to you in the business world, it’s very hard to regain your footing. I almost believed it myself.

AW: You were able to maintain the festival’s integrity and bring atmosphere back.

FARRELL: I think we have more integrity than we’ve had since probably 1994 now because we look over everything and locations are wonderful again. We’re paying for the groups that we want and I think that you feel it. It’s kind of like home cooking. You’ll taste the different.

AW: Tell us about your new project Satellite Party.

FARRELL: Satellite Party is being developed into a play that will eventually become a feature film. As I was writing this, I had the good sense to realize I needed a musical partner in this and I sat down with this amazing musician, Nuno Bettencourt, who’s just one of the great guitar players of our day. I don’t know if you’ve heard him?

AW: He’s formerly from Extreme?

FARRELL: That was his band back in the eighties and this guy is just as far as guitar, you ask guitar players about Nuno and there’s agreement that he’s just a great player…The music of Satellite Party is sounding even better than I would have expected because we have a somewhat difficult arrangement in that we work with electronics. We play with sequencers and things like that and that’s not an easy thing to pull off and really play. There are people who play with sequencers who really don’t play. Then there’s people who can’t play with sequencers. We are doing a wonderful job and it sounds powerful and I’m starting to move like I did in the day. A great sign for me…The people who have helped me to write the Satellite Party are Fergie from Black Eyed Pea who came in an sang on probably three tracks. We have Flea, who has written probably four songs with me. John Frusciante wrote one with Flea and I. The core is just Nuno and I…I’d love to see the music tour for a time, but I’d absolutely like to see within three years it become a feature…I really want to create something that will be in the future for all times sake a classic and so that’s what I’m looking for from the Satellite Party. It’s a beautiful story and the music’s beautiful too. I want it to come to fruition and be something that changes the perception of people. Maybe it even opens up a paradigm in thinking of mankind. Jim Morrison has something to do with it?

AW: How does he inspire you?

FARRELL: Jim Morrison opened paradigms and was a classic. Not just Jim Morrison, but the Doors. They’re still here and as far as I’m concerned I could count on one hand the greatest modern groups and composers and on one of those fingers has got to be The Doors.

AW: I saw you speak at Pollstar’s Concert Industry Consortium last year and you talked about how “everyone is an artist at one time.” You talked about how the artist is one who “continues to believe he can self-decorate the world.” What does being an artist mean to you today and how do you balance that with being a business man?

FARRELL: The artist in a way has an edge on life in that he really sees the depth and the realities even further than most people, but the problem with that is you get to see how pathetic human beings can be at times and how cruel and how brazen and just the lack of regard human beings have for each other, so they’re blessed, but they get cursed because their lenses are so clear. Then at the same time, they are very much overlooked because people just consider that what they created should have just been there or was there. They don’t realize what it takes to get it there. It takes your imagination, your time to pull it out of your mind and either put it to paper or record it to tape or digital. So they’re not appreciated. This is what I think really kills them. It’s the guy who in school might be wearing the letter jacket (who in probably five years is going to be working for an insurance company nonetheless but has got bigger muscles).

Unfortunately, I see this in music too. That person gets all the girls if you know what I mean. Artists understand their own value and at the same time they realize that others don’t. So the artist has to kind of suffer through life.

AW: On being a business man and an artist then?

FARRELL: You have to really balance that out. What I like is I like to become clever. There’s a lot of ways you can get exposure. People may say all press is good press. I disagree with that quote. You don’t want to be known as the person who’s got something really cheesy. You don’t want to be known as the person who sold out. You want to be known as an author. You “authenticate” something. I feel that you go to your strengths and you create something that will turn peoples’ heads and that’s how you do it. You become ingenious, rather than following what’s going on and cashing in on things or stooping away from what your God-given talent is. You create something that will be a classic.

Check out Decades Rock Live @ Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on August 5

Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly 8/3/05.

Puffy AmiYumi - Interview

by Tina Whelski

You may recognize the chart-topping Japanese pop duo Puffy AmiYumi best as cartoons but their career success beyond the two-dimensional world is anything but imaginary.

Their TV show Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m on Cartoon Network and opens with a song you can’t miss, “Hi Hi” with that ridiculously catchy chorus: “Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi show/Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi show” repeated a gazillion times. Based on the J-pop stars’ fantasized rock star lives the show follows them as they jam with aliens on an international space station, get chased by their No. 1 fan, and learn new dance moves for a Japanese dance competition.

In one episode make-believe manager Kaz even creates a pair of life-sized Puffy dolls so that the girls can be in two money-making places at once! It’s then up to the girls to stop the creepy dolls before they take over the Puffy girls’ world. Hmm. Not a bad idea Kaz, considering Puffy AmiYumi’s real lives are not so far removed from “all” of that fantasy.

Puffy AmiYumi have sold millions of records, including the first single they ever released in 1996 “Asia No Junshin” which launched Puffy-mania. Since then, they have hosted a television variety show (Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy), headlined arena-sized concerts, and inspired action-figure dolls and even a line of shoes. All of their singles has been licensed for high-profile commercials for products such as motor scooters, cosmetics, computers, and soft drinks. You also heard their song “Friends Forever” in the Scooby-Doo 2 soundtrack.

The Japanese idorus (idols) celebrate their tenth anniversary next year, impressive longevity when you realize that the girls were actually strangers to one another until brought together by a record label and a management company. In 1995 Tokyo-bred Ami Onuki and Osaka native Yumi Yoshimura had each learned about talent searches underway in Tokyo. Ami sent her demo to Sony; Yumi auditioned for a management company; the next thing they knew, the unlikely friends were blending voices, creating hit after hit and launching a cultural phenomena.

The group’s latest CD, the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Soundtrack, was produced by Tamio Okuda (formerly of the platinum Japanese rock band Unicorn) and Andy Sturmer (formerly of American rock band Jellyfish).

What is the plot of Puffy AmiYumi’s next real-life adventure? The duo kicks off an East Coast tour this month to perform songs like “Joining a Fan Club,” “Planet Tokyo,” “Love so Pure” and “Koregawatashino Ikirumi chi” before a crowd of screaming fans.

*Speaking through a translator the girls gave WomanRock a heads up on what they’re up to.

WOMANROCK: What differences do you find between how Japanese and American audiences receive your live performances?

AMI: In the states it’s normal to have dance parties and to express yourself in body language. The cultural differences are not so different, but we can feel more movement in the American audience.

WOMANROCK: Everyone may not be familiar with the term J-pop. How do you describe it and is that where you feel your music fits?

YUMI: J-pop is actually Japanese pop. In that category there are a lot of other categories. It’s just a big way to say Japanese music. If the audience who listens to Puffy thinks it belongs in J-pop, that’s what we feel. We want to leave it up to the audience to categorize it.

WOMANROCK: What is it like having a cartoon based on your pretend rock n’ roll adventures?

YUMI: When we watch it, we watch it as cartoon Ami and Yumi. We don’t really portray ourselves in it. It’s so exaggerated and if we were really portraying our normal lives, it wouldn’t be that interesting as a cartoon (laughs).

WOMANROCK: You’re no strangers to television. You also hosted a television variety show in Japan a while back called Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy?

AMI: That was like five years ago. It was fun and it was good for us because our music could be portrayed to a new variety of people who haven’t heard our music, so it was a good opportunity for us.

WOMANROCK: If you had to guess what makes you so relatable to your fans, what do you think it is?

AMI: Can you tell us? (laughs). We really want to know.

WOMANROCK: You were strangers to each other until you were brought together by a record label and a management company. Musically you hit it off, but personally how did you get to know each other?

AMI: In the beginning we were so different so we didn’t think we’d hit it off. Once we started to become friends we hit it off right away though.

WOMANROCK: Your debut single in 1996 “Asia No Junshin” launched Puffy-mania. Were you surprised by the sudden attention at what you had created?

YUMI: We didn’t expect it. A famous producer and musician in Japan, Tamio Okuda, was the producer for our first song and just everything that was put together for that song all came together and made it happen, but we didn’t expect it. It was luck.

WOMANROCK: You’ve had three CDs now. How did you approach this last album as artists.

AMI: We don’t write the songs ourselves. We write a lot of the lyrics. When we choose the songs, we always imagine how they will be performed at the concerts. That’s our main thing. We love to have fun doing our songs.

WOMANROCK: What do you like to write about?

YUMI: It really depends on the song and how we feel at that moment. There’s not really one thing that we’re influenced by. It’s just when we’re on the spot writing it together, we put our minds together. There’s nothing in particular we want to show or portray or anything like that.

WOMANROCK: Who are some of your favorite American bands?

AMI: Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nirvana, and of course Jellyfish because Andy Sturmer is one of our producers.

WOMANROCK: What are your plans for the future?

YUMI: In the near future is obviously the East Coast tour and actually next year is our ten year anniversary together, so we want to do something together. We’re in the process of thinking of that.

Originally posted on WomanRock.com August '05.

Feist - Interview

by Tina Whelski

Canadian-born Leslie Feist takes her experience gained through eclectic unions with Broken Social Scene, Gonzales, By Divine Right, and others and turns it into what she calls a “cross section of reality” on her highly praised debut solo effort, Let It Die (Cherry Tree/Interscope).

Feist was originally quite content as a collaborator, four-tracking her original material only as an aside for many years. But when the moment came to share home demos with Gonzalez, her seductive voice and cinematic music premiered.

“We weren’t intending at all to make a record,” says Feist. “It wasn’t even on my radar anymore to make records for myself because I was always having such a fulfilling time playing with my friends. I love the role of supporting someone whose music you really believe in. I didn’t feel that anything was lacking…I made these songs and we realized it was a record.”

Identifying the singular moments between life’s episodes, Feist’s songs playfully skip through genres in songs such as “Mushaboom,” “Tout Doucement,” “When I Was A Young Girl,” and the record’s first single, a cover of “Secret Heart.”

“I’ve never really been a student of any particular styles or genres,” says Feist. “I’ve never had the patience to stick it through and learn all the ins and outs of particular genres…I’ll love something and I’ll love it until I love the next thing."

During production the intent was to keep all of the instrumentation very simple and maintain an uncluttered feel, which enhances the storytelling, hooks, melody and certainly the airy mood.

“With the players that I’ve really been drawn to playing with and listening to over the years, you can hear them deciding what not to play rather than showing every second what they’re capable of,” says Feist.

Let It Die accentuates Feist’s vocals and practices restraint, intensifying her expression amidst the record’s movement. Lyrically she practices the same philosophy.

“I guess when I saw that movie Lost In Translation somehow it resonated really deeply in me,” says Feist. “Afterwards, I thought, ‘Why did that hit me so deeply?’ I thought maybe that represents in a movie what, without realizing, I’ve been trying to write about, which is all the little moments between the drama. All the follow up moments where this enormous thing goes down and you’re by yourself and you’re in your bathroom sitting on the floor having one of those stark reality moments of truth?"

Originally posted to WomanRock August '05.

Feist video for "Mushaboom."