Feist

The great paradox of the remix album, usually, is this: The better the source material, the more disappointing the remix album. After all, why bother reworking material that was pretty good to begin with? The results tend to be the musical equivalent of New Coke -- a bland reinvention of an old favorite.

Considering this, it's a pleasant surprise that Feist's "remixes and collabs" album Open Season is not only very good -- it's almost as entertaining as her stunning debut Let It Die, the album on which most of Open Season is based. If nothing else, it's much more diverse than your average remix album. Yes, there are four different versions of "Mushaboom," but there are also three tracks featuring Leslie Feist guest singing on other people's music (the highlight: Feist in full-blown sex-kitten mode on a cover of Peaches' "Lovertits"), and two tracks that are more deconstructions that traditional remixes -- an instrumental piano version of "One Evening" and an acoustic "unmix" of "Inside+Out" that trumps the original thanks to Feist's gorgeously vulnerable vocal. All this additional material adds a depth and freshness to Open Season that many remix albums sorely lack.

But fear not, remix fans -- the standard-issue programmed beats are here in abundance, though thankfully executed with more grace and restraint than on your typical remix set. Most are the work of the frequent Feist collaborator Gonzalez, working under the name VV with his partner Renaud Letang; all are solid, but two other tracks ultimately steal the show. One is the Postal Service remix of "Mushaboom," a symphony of trembling synths complete with Ben Gibbard's wide-eyed vocals sneaking in next to Feist's. The other, surprisingly, is an airy, trip-hoppy remix of "Lonely Lonely" that, if Feist's liner notes are to be believed, someone tossed onstage on an unmarked CD during a show in London. Called the "Frisbee'd Mix," it's an exemplary deconstruction of a great pop song into a haunting, atmospheric tone poem of looped beats and melancholy chords. It could be the work of someone like Hint or even Lemon Jelly, but who knows? Maybe it really is some anonymous bedroom remixer who's just a really big Feist fan.

Not everything on Open Season works; VV's clunky attempt at a club-friendly remix of "Mushaboom" falls short, and the usually reliable k-os stumbles over the same track, slapping a heavy-handed hip-hop beat over it that grates against the lightness of Feist's vocal. Ultimately, there's something about Leslie Feist's voice that just doesn't lend itself to modern dance beats -- there's an intimacy and fragility to her delivery that's better suited to softer, jazzier sounds. Fortunately, most of the arrangements on Open Season take this into account, which is another reason why it's that rare remix album that feels less like a detour and more like a natural extension of Feist's work. - Andy Hermann

Though Leslie Feist declares in the liner notes to Open Season that initially she "didn't really understand what remixes were," she obviously was quickly acquainted with them and the potential they could hold by the time she started putting her album together. Open Season, a collection of remixes of some songs from Let It Die as well as collaborations with others, provides an interesting look into the possibilities of Feist's music. With help from artists like K-Os, the Postal Service, Mocky, and songwriting partner Gonzales, Feist's songs are reconstructed using new drumbeats, added instrumentation, and vocal effects, with each producer choosing certain aspects and emotions of the original to emphasize. Sometimes, like in Julian Brown's "Apostle of Hustle Unmix" of "Inside and Out," the results are sparse and haunting, while other times what is produced -- the Postal Service's version of "Mushaboom," complete with a Ben Gibbard vocal track -- is much more intricate and intense than the sweet daydreams of the Let It Die version. Usually these reworkings turn out quite nicely, exploiting the different facets of the songs for what they're worth. Only toward the end of Open Season, when production team VV (Gonzales and Renaud Letang, who also worked on Let It Die) take over and add dancey, almost house-like elements to "One Evening," "When I Was a Young Girl," and "Mushaboom," do things begin to sound a little cheesy and unnecessary, over-produced in that campy way, which is unfortunate, because most of the record is really quite good, including her performances with other artists. Her duet with Jane Birkin, for example, "The Simple Story" (which is also found on Birkin's 2004 album, Rendez-Vous), is lovely with its lush strings and chorus, and sounds very much like something Birkin would have sung in the 1970s. But more than its individual parts, Open Season as an album shows the versatility of Feist's music and voice, how it can move from near trip-hop to French cabaret and all those delicate spaces in between, and almost always sound just right. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide