Feist Is Back to Confuse and Enthrall You in Equal Measure
Somewhere in the wilds of Canada, between sipping ethically sourced tea and perfecting the art of looking effortlessly disheveled, Feist has been making music that simultaneously soothes and disorients. And now, after six years of radio silence (which, let’s be real, is basically her standard operating procedure at this point), she’s returned with Multitudes, an album that feels like stepping into an existential fever dream.
Much like everything she’s ever done, Multitudes is gorgeous, intimate, and just a little off-kilter—because of course it is. Feist doesn’t make records for passive listening. You don’t just throw this on in the background while scrolling Instagram unless you want to have a full-blown identity crisis somewhere between I Took All My Rings Off and Calling All the Gods.
Life, Death, and the Perpetual Existential Crisis
The big themes this time? Birth, death, and whatever weird in-between space we all float through on the way from one to the other. In a move that sounds like a deranged folk song come to life, Feist became a mom and lost a parent at basically the same time. So, if the album feels like a metaphysical therapy session, that’s because it kind of is.
“I felt like I was staring down my own mortality,” she tells me, which is exactly the kind of thing you expect Feist to say while somehow making it sound poetic instead of horrifying. The album title, Multitudes, isn’t just a reference to the different versions of herself scattered across time—it’s also a nod to the sheer chaos of existence. So, fun!
Fighting Time With a Guitar and a Notebook
One of the best things about Feist is that she never does the same thing twice, even when she tries. The acoustic arrangements on Multitudes feel raw, almost like she just picked up a guitar in the middle of an identity crisis and hit record (which is, honestly, not far from the truth). It’s also the first time she’s actively tried to challenge herself with her guitar playing because, apparently, touring gets boring when you already know what you’re doing.
“I wanted to be boot camping my hands every night,” she says, as if making things easy for yourself is some kind of moral failing.
But the best part? I Took All My Rings Off—a song that somehow starts as a quiet, personal moment and ends up as a full-blown invocation to the gods. Turns out, it was born out of a songwriting challenge where Feist, Beck, Mac DeMarco, and Damien Rice had to write a song every single day for a week. Yes, Feist’s entry ended up being a borderline spiritual awakening, while Beck probably recorded something in his bathroom that sounded like a lost Odelay B-side.
Muppets, Mastodon, and the Sexy Canadians of Our Time
Of course, this isn’t Feist’s first rodeo when it comes to doing the unexpected. She once covered Mastodon (because why not), popped up in The Muppets movie (because obviously), and has somehow managed to exist in that rare musical space where she can collaborate with both Sloan and Peaches without anyone batting an eye.
And while we’re here: Dan Mangan was once named Canada’s Sexiest Musician, which Feist finds hilarious. “That’s how you know he’s Canadian,” she laughs. “He’s probably wearing plaid.”
The Slow Burn of Feist’s Return
After six years, Multitudes proves that Feist still knows exactly how to pull you into her world—whether you’re ready for it or not. This is an album for people who like their beauty with a little bit of chaos, their lyrics with a little bit of mystery, and their Feist albums to show up just infrequently enough to make them question whether she ever existed at all.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the video below.
