The Reminder (CD - 2007)

Personnel: Feist (acoustic guitar); Bryden Baird (flugelhorn); Mocky (acoustic bass); Julian Brown (electric bass); Jesse Baird, Gonzales (drums); Jamie Lidell (unknown instrument); Town Hall (background vocals).

Additional personnel: Eirik Glambek Boe (vocals); Afie Jurvanen (guitar); Lori Gemmel (harp); Sandra Baron (violin); Mary Stein (cello); Pierre Luc Jamain (organ); Ohad Benchetrit, Charles Spearin (unknown instrument); Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning (background vocals).

Canadian singer-songwriter Leslie Feist first gained prominence working with the Montreal shock-rapper Peaches and later the Toronto-based collective Broken Social Scene, but with the release of 2004's masterful LET IT DIE, she embarked on a solo career that quickly eclipsed her previous work. Following the pleasant but inessential remix album OPEN SEASON, 2007's THE REMINDER is Feist's true follow-up to LET IT DIE, and it deepens and solidifies that album's strengths. Combining jazzy torch songs with acoustic, folkish ballads, THE REMINDER is as quietly powerful as her Broken Social Scene bandmate Emily Haines's equally subdued solo debut, KNIVES DON'T HAVE YOUR BACK, but with a jazzy edge that recalls Nina Simone on tunes like "Sea Lion" (a standard also recorded by Simone) and the lush single "My Moon, My Man." minimize