The Atlantic

Feist's <em>Pleasure</em> Reworks the Passage of Time

The Canadian singer’s challenging but beautiful fifth album considers nostalgia, the future, and loneliness.
Source: Mary Rozzi / Universal

Feist’s stormy and great “Century” is the kind of song that doesn’t let you tune out while you listen. The drums wallop in a sharp, jerky pattern that’s like a cop banging on a door. Leslie Feist’s trademark style—melting her words into high, fleeting tones—appears here with unusual urgency. Midway through, the arrangement disappears and builds back up as Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker whispers about the number of seconds, minutes, and hours that make up a hundred-year span. It’s “almost

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