'New Soul' singer Naim feeling Feist-y

Music may be the universal language, but TV speaks to a bigger audience.
When French-Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naim’s debut album, “In a Man’s Womb,” was released in 2001, it flopped. No surprise. Vocalists warbling in French are a niche market in the United States.
That didn’t stop Naim - who performs tomorrow at Berklee Performance Center - from adding Hebrew to the mix for her self-titled sophomore disc. Then Apple called wanting to use a hopeful little English-language ditty from the CD called “New Soul” for its MacBook Air TV ad campaign. A perfect match for a new line of lightweight products, the song’s wide-eyed freshness has captured enough hearts to approach the 1 million mark in sales.



Suddenly, everyone knows Yael Naim’s name (even if they’re not sure how to say it: It’s pronounced yah-el nah-eem). The multilingual chanteuse is ecstatic at her sudden shift in fortune.
“We had offers to do ads for chocolate, cars and insurance; none of it really felt right,” Naim, 30, said in heavily accented English while speaking by phone from Paris. “But when Apple came along, it made total sense. We had a Mac set up right here in the living room while we worked on this CD! And Mac ads have been very successful for other artists like Feist. We were worried that using a song sung in English might be misleading to people at first, but the CD is doing well also.”
Naim’s creative partner, percussionist/arranger David Donatien, wholeheartedly agrees.
“Today, the music is everywhere,” he said in a separate call from Paris. “You don’t have control over where it goes. It was a really positive thing for us to be included in the Mac family of musicians. It opens up a big window.”
Naim’s mention of Feist, who experienced similar breakout success when her “1234” was used in Apple’s iPod Nano commercials, is telling: Due to an uncanny vocal likeness, many folks hearing “New Soul” assumed it was Feist.
“I can understand that,” Naim said. “We have some things in common. The way I work with David and she’s worked with (producer/musician) Gonzales, for instance. And there’s definitely a familiar, fragile tone to her voice.”
Donatien and Naim first planned the disc as a stripped-down gi- with-guitar affair. But as their collaboration deepened, they ended up fleshing out the songs with pop flair.
Naim cites the Beatles and Joni Mitchell as her biggest influences. She says she enjoys singing in different languages for different reasons.
“It’s not that I like one more than the other,” she said. “They each bring different things. English lends itself to music marvelously, and that allows you a lot of creative freedom. Hebrew is less sexy and less harmony-oriented. Instead, you get simple melodies and purer emotion. And French is delicate but very poetic.”
And in the end, Naim believes the power of music transcends any linguistic barriers.
“Music connects people,” she said. “You can still be touched by it even if you can’t figure out the narrative. It’s another level of understanding.
“David and I aren’t nervous about the tour. We’re just happy. We’ve found something very rare between us. Plus, we get to travel a lot and see a great deal of culture in a very short time.”
Spoken just like a “New Soul.”