Perhaps, post-Feist, we’ve had enough light indie songs with perky acoustic strums, single piano notes that loosely follow the melody, and optional banjo and/or ukelele. It’s a very pretty musical conceit — one that’s been used to great effect by many luminaries in the last decade or so. But now the outsized success of people like The Decemberists, She & Him, and Ms. Leslie Feist herself has led to many, many soundalikes being used in myriad inescapable television ads. It’s to the point that when I hear any variation on that particular bubbly, optimistic dynamic, my mind can’t help but be drawn to Prudential Insurance or Volvo or Arm & Hammer Magic Eraser Pads. I can’t be alone in this. We are reaching a boiling point with this stuff.
However, I have to give Patrick Watson credit for doing something weird with it. The Canadian singer/songwriter is very much worthy of respect. He’s previously produced two fine albums, one of which is a Polaris Prize winner, so I was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt 20 seconds into this new track, “Into Giants,” which opens with some major Volvo-shilling twee. Soon enough, though, things shift into semi-abstract territory, with Watson’s soothing vocal splitting off in all directions, creating overlapping call-and-response textures which complement the stop-start verses. There’s a chorus of sorts, featuring a mideast-inspired backing vocal, that dissolves into a subdued, quiet bridge only to ramp up again, back into the original verse, now awash in even more vocals and brass accents. It’s a cobbled, almost Animal Collective-like procession of abstract song snippets that somehow still sound perfectly pop. Don’t let the cutesiness fool you; this is a real gem.