Owen Pallett
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| Owen Pallett | ||
|---|---|---|
| Background information | ||
| Origin | Toronto, Ontario, Canada | |
| Genre(s) | Violin Solo Experimental Music |
|
| Label(s) | Blocks Recording Club Tomlab |
|
| Website | Official Site | |
Owen Pallett (born September 7, 1979) is a violinist and singer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Pallett is the principal member of the band Final Fantasy, which is essentially a solo project, although Leon Taheny is also credited as drummer and engineer.
As Final Fantasy, Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a sampler controlled by foot pedals, which then loops back one or more of the previously played musical phrases as he plays additional parts simultaneously. He has also performed with more traditional string quartets as backing musicians.
He believes his work is influenced by his sexuality, saying, "As far as whether the music I make is gay or queer, yeah, it comes from the fact that I'm gay, but that doesn't mean I'm making music about it," in a recent interview.
Pallett has been composing for most of his life, notably beginning with some of the music for the game Traffic Department 2192, to scoring films, to composing two operas while in university. Apart from the Indie music scene, he is currently working on a commission from Tafelmusik.
On 12 February 2005, his debut album, Has a Good Home, was released by the recording club Blocks (sometimes referred to as 'BlocksBlocksBlocks'), a cooperative, Toronto-based record label of which he is a founding member. A second album, He Poos Clouds, was released in June of 2006. This album went on to win the 2006 Polaris Prize for best Canadian album.
His previous projects included a 3-piece Toronto-based band, Les Mouches, now defunct. He was once the violinist of another Toronto band called Picastro. Owen has also recorded and toured with Jim Guthrie, The Hidden Cameras, The Vinyl Cafe, and Arcade Fire (he co-wrote the strings arrangement for their albums Funeral and Neon Bible) [1]. One of his songs, "This Is the Dream of Win & Regine", was inspired by the principal members of the latter group, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne and is a play on a Dntel song called, "(This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan."
The name "Final Fantasy" is a tribute to the well-known video game series, of which Owen is a fan.
On March 1, 2006, He Poos Clouds video[2] was released, directed by Jesse Ewles.
On September 18, 2006, He Poos Clouds was named winner of the inaugural Polaris Music Prize.
On November 11, 2006, Pallett posted to a fan forum to announce a new album, tentatively titled Heartland, presumably to be released in mid to late 2007.
Pallett is currently taking a break from touring to work on new material for Final Fantasy. He has also been working on remixes for the band Stars ("Your Ex-Lover is Dead," for the redux album Do You Trust Your Friends, due May 22nd) and Bloc Party.
Contents |
[edit] Discography
See also albums under Arcade Fire.
 Blood Orgy!!! CD-EP |
 You're Worth More to Me Than 1000 Christians CD |
||
 February 12, 2005 |
[edit] Trivia
- His method of looping and layering violin to create his music is also used by violinist Andrew Bird.
- "Adventure.Exe" (from the Has A Good Home album) was used in a series of 2006 United Kingdom commercials by Orange. Pallett did not intend to sell the song for this purpose, but its use was authorized anyway due to a miscommunication with his record label, Tomlab. All of Pallett's income from this use is donated to Doctors Without Borders.
- Called on Casey and Jenn Mecija of Ohbijou for the "boy choir" vocals in "This Lamb Sells Condos"
- Did strings for the band Fucked Up in their album Hidden World.
- Received a Bachelor of Music for Composition from the University of Toronto in 2002.[3]
[edit] Covers played live
- Arcade Fire - "No Cars Go" (Bristol, October 2006).
- Bloc Party - "This Modern Love" (various concerts)
- Destroyer - "An Actor's Revenge" (Leeds and Dublin, October 2006)
- Joanna Newsom - "Peach, Plum, Pear" (various concerts)
- John Cale - "Paris 1919" (various concerts)
- Joni Mitchell - "Sex Kills" (Bristol, October 2006)
- Mariah Carey - "Fantasy" (various concerts, most recently in September 2006)
- OMD - "ABC Auto-Industry" (various concerts)
- Simon Bookish - "Interview" (Leeds and Dublin, October 2006)
- Xiu Xiu - "Fabulous Muscles" (various concerts)
[edit] External links
- Final Fantasy official website
- Audiojunkies Interview with Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett)
- Tomlab
- Blocks Recording Club
- Picastro's official web site
- Les Mouches
- Artist profile on Pitchfork Media
- Profile by Carl Wilson in The Globe & Mail (Toronto), toward the end of the Les Mouches period
- Another piece by Wilson, on Final Fantasy, in The New York Times
- Interview where Owen denies the rumor that he has never played the Final Fantasy video games
- Interview with Owen Pallett aka Final Fantasy at twistedear.com
