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ART
things are bad, my friends / And you feel exactly the way / That proves the mettle of your heart.” There are nosier, catchier, and more swaggering songs on Multitudes, but simplicity of this final track and the narrator’s commitment to empathic listening catches me off guard. The raw emotions germane to Feist’s previous records also surge across Multitudes, manifested in the explosive intensity of the lead single “In Lightening,” where Feist puns on the parallels between nature’s voltage and psychological enlightenment. By
the end of the album, though, there’s evidence
of hard-won clarity. Feist, it seems, has learned how to soothe herself. The acquisition of this
skill may not be incidental to the experience of motherhood: “When I’m with my daughter, it can feel like I’m witnessing a pinhole of light,
and I just try to uphold kindness and model de-escalation to her. Sometimes I can see that
her whole being is so ready to embrace extremes. It’s like she can choose to be a superhero or a supervillain, and I can see she’s just learning her power.”
Being a mother is just one of the identities Feist is inhabiting these days—she’s also a grieving daughter; a musician ever-honing her perspective; and a curious, joy-seeking participant in the world. She compares trying to experience multiple selves coherently to “reading a flipbook,” because “everything is changing all the time.” During our call, Feist has been sitting in her kitchen, sipping from an earthenware mug, and resting her hands on a sturdy wooden table when not thoughtfully gesticulating. On the softly lit wall behind her, a bright blue and orange finger painting made by her daughter hangs near an equally colourful painting by Feist’s late father. Suddenly, the singer points beyond the laptop camera’s frame toward her backyard. “My niece is visiting me right now on her reading week. I told her she has to do some reading while she’s here,” Feist laughs, “so she’s out in the hammock with a book.” “Lucky girl,” I reply, imagining that visiting your global popstar aunt, even if she is admittedly relaxed, must be pretty wild.
“I’ve been telling my niece that adulthood is not a place you arrive at, as if it’s a fixed point. It’s one thousand rivers to cross, one billion needles to thread, and the target keeps moving on you. It doesn’t get easier, but you can get better at staying on your toes and waking up as a person more capable of dealing with your day.” When
I read through my notes after our conversation, I’m reminded of a line from another Multitudes single, “Hiding Out In The Open”: “Everybody’s got their shit, but who’s got the guts to sit with it?” In the accompanying music video, half a dozen Feists appear in a partially constructed performance or rehearsal space—there’s a blue ladder and a couple techs in the background
who seem unfazed by the presence of multiple Feists. With her side bangs and ’90s-style white jeans and sweatshirt, the artist could still be in her mid-twenties “Mushaboom” era, but Feist is a lot wiser these days and, as if to prove it, there she is, harmonizing with her many selves.
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Full look by CHANEL.
RIGHT: Top, skirt, and pearl ring by Dior; ring by Cartier.