Listen: Feist - "Pleasure"

Earlier this week Canadian singer/songwriter Feist announced her follow up to 2011's Metals in arguably the most understated way possible. The announcement wasn't accompanied with any taste of what was in store just a sort of vague intimation of what she had been up to and confirmation that the rumors that new music would be coming this year with a definite date of next month. Yesterday, much like the lead up to Metals, Feist released a series of teaser videos (albeit this time of classic films) featuring a snippet of the yet to be announced single and finally we get to hear more than a 5 second snippet of the chorus.

Described as planting a seed of brightness by its title "Pleasure" and its eponymous album finds Feist is a considerably different emotional state than many of the break up pop that made up Metals. "Pleasure" is a bit of a slow burn: starting from completely silence and getting more and more rambunctious as it builds to the cacophony of its climatic finale. Much like her initial announcement where Feist described the two sides of pleasure: mild and fleeting or deeply felt and lasting, she toys with both sides in the single. "Get what I want and still it's a mysterious thing that I want" Feist coos initially after nearly a minute of build up. "I, and you are the same and either fiction or dreaming we know enough to admit" and just like that she sets up the chorus and the rest of the song, describing similarities and commingling feelings and the escapism that togetherness brings. It's simultaneous romantic and also deflating. Feist does a surprising amount very swiftly. After constructing an evolving song with a patient building block like cadence, she basically knocks it all down like dominoes while giving only the briefest of hints at what's coming. "We became our needs" Feist sings and then quickly moves on and then suddenly things surge up and the chorus is all that's left; overpowering in its intensity: "It's my pleasure, it's your pleasure" warps solely into "It's my pleasure" as Feist and her guitar take center stage and stomps and claps rise up to meet chants of "Pleasure! Pleasure!". It's certainly a way to make an entrance and the lead track from her upcoming album sure does a heck of a lot towards making me even more excited for the rest of the album. Luckily for us the release of Pleasure is but a month and some change away.



Feist's fifth studio album Pleasure is out April 28th on Polydor.