Leslie Feist Keeps Getting Quieter

Feist got famous by accident. 1234 ended up in an Apple ad and that was that—her voice suddenly everywhere, whether you’d sought it out or not. A certain kind of artist uses that moment as a blueprint. Feist went the other direction.

Metals, which came out in late 2011, felt deliberately difficult after the warmth of The Reminder. Sparse arrangements, extended silences, songs that didn’t resolve the way you’d been trained to expect. I spent the first listen waiting for it to open up, and by the end had stopped waiting and started listening differently—which was, I think, the request the record was making.

She’s anti-pioneer in the most specific sense: not a trailblazer but a refuser. The indie-folk crossover lane was hers to own, and she walked away from it. Perverse as a career decision, completely coherent as an artistic one. There’s something admirable about knowing what you’re not willing to become.