Owen Pallett



















Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett 2010.jpg
Owen Pallett performing at Coachella 2010

Background information
Birth nameMichael James Owen Pallett
Born
(1979-09-07) September 7, 1979 (age 39)
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Genres
Indie pop, classical, baroque pop, art rock, experimental music
Occupation(s)Musician, composer, arranger
InstrumentsViolin, viola, vocals, piano, harpsichord, synthesizer, guitar, bass
Labels
Blocks Recording Club
Tomlab
Domino Recording Company
Associated actsFinal Fantasy
Les Mouches
Enter the Haggis
Picastro
Arcade Fire
The Last Shadow Puppets
Websiteowenpalletteternal.com

Michael James Owen Pallett (born September 7, 1979) is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist, who performs solo as Owen Pallett or, before 2010, under the name Final Fantasy. As Final Fantasy, he won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds.[1]


From the age of 3, Pallett studied classical violin, and composed his first piece at age 13. A notable early composition includes some of the music for the game Traffic Department 2192; he moved on to scoring films, to composing two operas while in university. Apart from the indie music scene, he has had commissions from the Barbican, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada, Bang on a Can, Ecstatic Music Festival, the Vancouver CBC Orchestra, and Fine Young Classicals.


On his Final Fantasy releases, Pallett has collaborated with Leon Taheny, who is credited as drummer and engineer. Following the release of Heartland, Pallett has toured with guitarist/percussionist Thomas Gill[2] and more recently with his former collaborators in Les Mouches, Rob Gordon and Matt Smith.[3]


Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a loop pedal. Pallett uses Max/MSP and SooperLooper to do multi-phonic looping, which sends his violin signal to amplifiers across the stage.[4]


In January 2014, Pallett and William Butler were nominated for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards for their work on Her.




Contents





  • 1 Career

    • 1.1 Solo work


    • 1.2 Other contributions



  • 2 Personal life


  • 3 Discography

    • 3.1 With Les Mouches


    • 3.2 Solo work

      • 3.2.1 Studio albums


      • 3.2.2 EPs


      • 3.2.3 Singles


      • 3.2.4 Various songs



    • 3.3 Other contributions



  • 4 References


  • 5 External links




Career



Solo work


The name Final Fantasy, under which Pallett recorded prior to the release of Heartland, was a tribute to the well-known video game series, although he said that it is not one of his top twenty favorite games.[5]




Final Fantasy performing in 2005.


Pallett's debut album, Has a Good Home,[6] was released on February 12, 2005, by the Blocks Recording Club, a cooperative, Toronto-based record label of which he is a founding member. "An Arrow in the Side of Final Fantasy" borrows the music from the Space Zone's final level in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. "Adventure.exe" from this album was used in a series of 2006 commercials by Orange in the United Kingdom.< Pallett did not intend to sell the song for this purpose, but its use was authorized due to an alleged miscommunication with his record label, Tomlab.[citation needed] All of Pallett's income from this use is donated to Doctors Without Borders.


Pallett's second album, He Poos Clouds, was released in June 2006, though the video, directed by Jesse Ewles, was released on March 1, 2006. The album consists entirely of string quartet arrangements. Eight of the ten songs are about each of the schools of magic as described in the rules to the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The album was named winner of the 2006 Polaris Music Prize. Uncomfortable with receiving a prize sponsored by a mobile phone conglomerate, Pallett gave the money away to bands he liked who needed financial assistance.[citation needed]


IN July, 2007, Pallett was interviewed on the CBC Radio One program Q, about his upcoming album, to be titled Heartland, which was to have a theme of nothingness.[7]


In 2007, the song "This Is The Dream of Win & Regine" was used in a commercial for Wiener Stadtwerke without Pallett's permission. Instead of litigation, Pallett and his booking agent Susanne Herrndorf approached the company for sponsorship for a music festival of their curation. The resultant Maximum Black Festival featured Final Fantasy, The Dirty Projectors, Deerhoof, Frog Eyes, Max Tundra, Six Organs of Admittance and others. It played Vienna, Berlin and London. In September 2007 they did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon.


In October 2007 Final Fantasy released a vinyl 7" on Tomlab's Alphabet Single series ( The Letter "X" ). The two tracks on "X", recorded in Montreal with Zach Condon, of the band Beirut; predate the album He Poos Clouds. The tracks – "Hey Dad" and "What Do You Think Will Happen Next?" are both played regularly at live shows. The song "Hey Dad" contains a melody borrowed from the Nintendo video game "Super Mario Bros. 3"; specifically it is the music from the "Coin Heaven" bonus/hidden stages. Also, the song is quite similar in melody, lyrics and tone to another of Pallett's songs – "→".


In March 2008, Owen Pallett under the alias Final Fantasy, collaborated with Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste on a cover of Björk's "Possibly Maybe" as part of Stereogum's tribute to Björk's album, Post.[8]


In Fall 2008, Pallett released two EPs. The first one, Spectrum, 14th Century, was a collaboration with Beirut. The second EP, Plays To Please, was a tribute to fellow Torontonian Alex Lukashevsky and his group Deep Dark United. On it, six Lukashevsky originals were reconfigured for a 35-piece big band, the Toronto-based St. Kitts Orchestra (which includes Drumheller's Nick Fraser, Paul Mathew of the Hidden Cameras, and a whistling Andrew Bird, among others).[9]


On December, 2009, Pallett began performing and recording under his own name. The album Heartlandwas released on Domino Records on January 12, 2010. It was mixed by New York producer Rusty Santos. Also he played Primavera Sound Festival 2010.[10] In August 2010, Pallett released a four track EP entitled A Swedish Love Story on September 28 via Domino. The tracks received substantial airplay on community radio.[11]




On November 12, 2012, Pallett tweeted that he had been working on a new album called In Conflict.[12] The album, his fourth full-length recording, was released May 27, 2014.[13]



Other contributions




Pallett playing live in Brussels, 2010-03-23.


Pallett's previous projects included a 3-piece Toronto-based band, Les Mouches, now defunct. He also played fiddle for a short time with the Celtic rock band Enter the Haggis. He was once the violinist of another Toronto band called Picastro, and briefly played keyboard in SS Cardiacs (with Leon Taheny, Jessie Stein and Michael Small in 2005). Pallett has also recorded and toured with Jim Guthrie, The Hidden Cameras, Royal City, The Vinyl Cafe, Gentleman Reg, and Arcade Fire (he co-wrote the strings arrangement for their albums Funeral and Neon Bible).[14] 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,[14] and is a play on a Dntel song called, "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan."


Pallett contributed remixes for the bands Stars, Grizzly Bear and Death from Above 1979. He also wrote string arrangements for the Canadian bands Immaculate Machine, on their 2007 album, Fables, and Fucked Up, on their 2006 album Hidden World. He also wrote the string arrangements for the Beirut album The Flying Club Cup, as well as provided vocals for the track "Cliquot".[15] Most recently, he provided orchestration for the side project of Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner and former Rascals frontman Miles Kane, as The Last Shadow Puppets, entitled The Age of the Understatement. Pallett also conducted the London Metropolitan Orchestra in the recording of this project.


In June 2009 at Luminato, Toronto's annual festival of arts and creativity, Pallett provided part of the live soundtrack for the outdoor screening (at Yonge-Dundas Square) of the 1919 silent German horror film Tales of the Uncanny (Unheimliche Geschichten), alongside Canadian instrumental band Do Make Say Think and electronica music artist Robert Lippok from Berlin, Germany.[16]


Pallett recorded with Arcade Fire in 2010 while they were making their 2010 album The Suburbs. It later received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.[17]


In 2009, Pallett worked with Win Butler and Régine Chassagne on the score for Richard Kelly's film The Box.[18] Pallett was also initially set to score Rabbit Hole, a film by John Cameron Mitchell,[19] but in the end the film was scored by Anton Sanko. In late 2010, Pallett was named as composer for T Magazine's "Fourteen Actors Acting" project; he received, alongside the producers of that series, an Emmy Award for "New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle and Culture".[20]


Pallett collaborated with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats in 2012 when several songs from the Transcendental Youth album were performed in concert with the all-female vocal quartet Anonymous 4 and featured Pallett's arrangements for piano, guitar and voices.[21]


Pallett scored the 2013 film The Wait directed by M Blash.



Personal life


Pallett was born in Mississauga, Ontario and grew up in Milton.[22] He received an Honours Bachelor of Music for Composition from the University of Toronto in 2002.[23]


Pallett believes his work is implicitly 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."[24]


Patrick Borjal, Pallett's boyfriend, began working as his manager in 2006, and formed the management company Boyfriend Management.[25]


In 2014, Pallett penned an open letter weighing in on the Jian Ghomeshi abuse scandal.[26][27]



Discography



With Les Mouches



  • The Polite Album (CD-R) – 2002


  • Blood Orgy!!! (EP) – 2003


  • You're Worth More to Me Than 1000 Christians – 2004 (rereleased via Orchid Tapes in 2015)


Solo work



Studio albums



  • Has a Good Home (as Final Fantasy) – February 12, 2005


  • He Poos Clouds (as Final Fantasy) – May 15, 2006


  • Heartland – January 11, 2010


  • In Conflict – May 27, 2014[12][28]


EPs



  • Young Canadian Mothers (as Final Fantasy) – March 10, 2006


  • Spectrum, 14th Century (as Final Fantasy) – September 30, 2008


  • Plays to Please (as Final Fantasy) – October 2008


  • A Swedish Love Story EP – September 28, 2010


Singles


  • "Many Lives → 49 MP" (as Final Fantasy) – May 29, 2006

  • "Alphabet Series: X" (as Final Fantasy) – October 2007

  • "Lewis' Dream" (Flora Advert) – February 25, 2008

  • "Lewis Takes Action" – January 2010

  • "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" – March 29, 2010

  • "Julia/Tiberius" (with Daphni) – April 25, 2014


Various songs


  • "Joys" – appears on Worried Noodles (2007), a compilation of David Shrigley's lyrics set to music.

  • "Flare Gun" – appears on #8: SPAM (2007), a compilation released by Esopus.

  • "Possibly Maybe" – duet with Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear. Appears on the Stereogum compilation album, Enjoyed (2008),[8] a tribute to Björk's Post.

  • "The Donor" – appears on Crayon Angel: A Tribute to the Music of Judee Sill (2009).

  • "Red Sun (demo version)" – appears on Friends in Bellwoods II (2009).

  • "Hard to Explain" – appears on the Stereogum compilation Stroked (2011), a tribute to The Strokes debut album Is This It.

  • "The Phone Call" - appears on ADULT SWIM SINGLES 2015 (2015).

  • "Transformer (Guitar Demo)" - appears on the unlimited free milkshakes compilation Art Week 2016 (2016).


Other contributions








































































































































































































































Year
Artist
Album
Description
2002

Jim Guthrie

Morning Noon Night

2003
Jim Guthrie

Now, More Than Ever
violins, viola, string arrangements

The Hidden Cameras

The Smell of Our Own
violin, viola
2004
The Hidden Cameras

The Arms of His 'Ill'
viola on "Builds the Bone"
The Hidden Cameras

Mississauga Goddam
violin, piano, celeste

Arcade Fire

Funeral
violin, string arrangements

Gentleman Reg

Darby & Joan
string arrangements
Dan Goldman

Through a Revolution


Royal City

Little Heart's Ease


Death from Above 1979

Romance Bloody Romance: Remixes & B-Sides
violin on "Black History Month"
2005

Picastro

Metal Cares
viola

Grizzly Bear

Horn of Plenty
"Don't Ask" – Remix
2006
Grizzly Bear

Yellow House
string arrangements

Fucked Up

Hidden World
string arrangements
2007

Arcade Fire

Neon Bible
orchestral arrangements, violin
C'mon

Bottled Lightning (of an All Time High)
string arrangements

Great Lake Swimmers

Ongiara
string arrangements

Beirut

The Flying Club Cup
violin, organ, vocals on "Cliquot", string arrangements

Immaculate Machine

Immaculate Machine's Fables
violin

Montag

Going Places
vocals on "Softness, I Forgot Your Name"

Picastro

Whore Luck
piano on "Hortur", violin and organ on "All Erase"

Holy Fuck

LP
violin on "Lovely Allen"[29]

Stars

Do You Trust Your Friends?
"Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" – Remix
The Phonemes

There's Something We've Been Meaning to Tell You
back-up singing on "Pain Perdu", violin and piano on "Kim Rogers", guitar on "Pine Needles"
2008
Luxury Pond

Luxury Pond
string quartet arrangements

The Last Shadow Puppets

The Age of the Understatement
arranged and conducted orchestrations
2009

The Rumble Strips

Welcome to the Walk Alone
violin, string arrangements

Pet Shop Boys

Yes
orchestral arrangements

The Mountain Goats

The Life of the World to Come
violin, string arrangements

Mika

The Boy Who Knew Too Much
violin on "Rain"
2010

Arcade Fire

The Suburbs
String arrangements

Gigi

Maintenant
vocals on "I'll Quit"

Diamond Rings
"Something Else" single
piano, string arrangements on "Gentleman Who Fell"[30]

Duran Duran

All You Need Is Now
string arrangements, conductor on "The Man Who Stole a Leopard"
2011

The Luyas

Too Beautiful to Work
strings and string arrangements

Alex Turner

Submarine soundtrack
string arrangements on "Piledriver Waltz"

The National
"Exile Vilify" single
strings

Jim Guthrie

Sword & Sworcery LP: The Ballad of the Space Babies
violin on "The Cloud"

R.E.M.

Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011
orchestral arrangements on "We All Go Back to Where We Belong" and "Hallelujah"

Snow Patrol

Fallen Empires
orchestral arrangements, conductor
2012

Linkin Park

Living Things
strings on "I'll Be Gone"

Lindstrøm

De Javu/No Release 12"
"No Release" – Remix (feat. Steve Kado)

Titus Andronicus

Local Business
violin

Taylor Swift

Red
orchestral arrangements, conductor on "The Last Time"

Robbie Williams

Take the Crown
orchestral arrangements on "Candy", "Different" and "Into the Silence"

Slim Twig

A Hound at the Hem
string arrangements
2013

The National

Trouble Will Find Me
strings on "I Need My Girl"

David Lang

Death Speaks
violin[31]

Light Fires

Face
vocals on "Dependent"

Franz Ferdinand

Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action
strings & string arrangement on "Stand on the Horizon"

Arcade Fire

Reflektor
strings & string arrangement
2014
Marram

Sun Choir
vocals on "With Us Instead"

Sarah Neufeld

Black Ground EP
arrangement on "Breathing Black Ground (Orchestral Version)"[32]

Jennifer Castle

Pink City
string arrangements

Caribou

Our Love
violin, viola
2015

Titus Andronicus

The Most Lamentable Tragedy
string arrangements, violin, viola

Majical Cloudz

Are You Alone?
cello, drums, violin
2016

The Last Shadow Puppets

Everything You've Come to Expect
string and brass arrangements

Majical Cloudz

Wait And See EP
cello, drums, violin, piano

Little Scream

Cult Following
string arrangements, violin

Snowblink

Returning Current
string arrangements, violin, viola

Ricky Eat Acid

Talk To You Soon
string arrangements, conductor

Emily Reo

Spell 10"
string arrangements, conductor
2017

Kirin J Callinan

Bravado
string arrangements, violin and viola

Haim

Something To Tell You
string arrangement, violin and viola

Blue Hawaii

Tenderness
string arrangements, violin and viola

Charlotte Gainsbourg

Rest
string arrangements, conductor

Arcade Fire

Everything Now
string arrangements, piano, strings
Tomberlin

At Weddings
production, mixing, acoustic guitar, synths, vocals

Frank Ocean
"Provider"
string arrangement, conductor


References




  1. ^ "2006 Winners and Nominees". Polaris Music Prize. Archived from the original on April 24, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2013..mw-parser-output cite.citationfont-style:inherit.mw-parser-output qquotes:"""""""'""'".mw-parser-output code.cs1-codecolor:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registrationcolor:#555.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration spanborder-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-errordisplay:none;font-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-errorfont-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-formatfont-size:95%.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-leftpadding-left:0.2em.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-rightpadding-right:0.2em


  2. ^ Rayner, Ben (January 10, 2010). "Owen Pallett says farewell to Final Fantasy". thestar.com. Toronto. Retrieved February 11, 2010.


  3. ^ "A Call To Arms". Chromewaves.net. April 13, 2011. Retrieved July 5, 2011.


  4. ^ Vdovin, Marsha (December 1, 2010). "An Interview with Owen Pallett". Cycling '74 website. Retrieved January 29, 2011.


  5. ^ "Q&A with Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy". You Ain't No Picasso. April 18, 2006. Archived from the original on April 23, 2006. Retrieved April 26, 2013.


  6. ^ "A Completely Biased Ranking of the 60 Best Canadian Indie Rock Songs of the 00s Part II". Vice, Cam Lindsay Apr 10 2017


  7. ^ "Q", CBC Radio, July 9, 2007'


  8. ^ ab "Enjoyed: A Tribute To Bjork's Post". Retrieved July 2, 2008.


  9. ^ "New Final Fantasy – "The Butcher" & "Ultimatum" (Stereogum Premiere)". Stereogum. August 26, 2008. Retrieved October 7, 2009.


  10. ^ "Ola's Kool Kitchen on Radio 23 Owen Pallett Live Primavera 2010 : DJ Ola : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". Archive.org. March 10, 2001. Retrieved 2013-12-01.


  11. ^ CJSR 88.5MHz - Edmonton Top 30 For the Week Ending: Tuesday, October 26, 2010. !Earchot charts


  12. ^ ab Alex Hudson (November 12, 2012). "Owen Pallett Preps "Non-Fictional" Album 'In Conflict'". Exclaim!. Retrieved March 21, 2013.


  13. ^ "Owen Pallett Shares "Song for Five & Six" Video, Pushes Back New Album Release Date". Pitchfork. April 22, 2014. Retrieved 2014-05-21.


  14. ^ ab Deusner, Stephen M. (March 9, 2005). "Profile: Final Fantasy". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved June 3, 2007.


  15. ^ Solarski, Matthew (June 21, 2007). "Beirut Announce Album Release Date, Tracklist, Tour". Pitchfork Media. Archived from the original on June 26, 2007. Retrieved August 9, 2007.


  16. ^ "TALES OF THE UNCANNY". Archived from the original on April 11, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2016.


  17. ^ "Past Winners Search". Grammy.com. Retrieved May 21, 2014.


  18. ^ Pattison, Louis (January 16, 2010). "From Arcade Fire to Mika, Owen Pallett is the industry's go-to guy for a lavish orchestral arrangement". guardian.co.uk. London. Retrieved February 11, 2010.


  19. ^ "Owen Pallett says farewell to Final Fantasy". thestar.com. January 10, 2010. Retrieved March 17, 2011.


  20. ^ "The Emmy Awards – Winners of The 32nd Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards". National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. September 26, 2011. Archived from the original on October 30, 2016. Retrieved May 21, 2014.


  21. ^ "John Darnielle to Unveil New Mountain Goats Project with Some Help from Owen Pallett". Exclaim!. November 16, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2013.


  22. ^ Saccoccio, Sabrina (24 February 2007). "Oh, those crazy artistes, who make a virtue of life in the 'burbs: Not everyone needs downtown hotel bars to make art". The Globe and Mail. Toronto ON. p. M4.


  23. ^ "Experiments with Violin". University of Toronto Magazine. Summer 2006. Archived from the original on May 10, 2007. Retrieved June 3, 2007.


  24. ^ Liss, Sarah (June 23, 2005). "Final Fantasy". Now. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved February 20, 2010.


  25. ^ "Toronto musician embarks on cross-country tour". Capital Xtra!. June 29, 2007. Retrieved July 10, 2007.


  26. ^ "Owen Pallett Says Jian Ghomeshi Beat 3 Women". Vulture.com. Retrieved 2015-06-19.


  27. ^ "Owen Pallett States "Jian Ghomeshi Beats Women" in Open Letter". /exclaim!, By Alex Hudson, Oct 28, 2014


  28. ^ "News [October 4, 2013]". October 4, 2013. Retrieved November 6, 2013.


  29. ^ [1] Archived October 12, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.


  30. ^ "Diamond Rings – "Gentleman Who Fell" (Milla Jovovich Cover) (Stereogum Premiere)". Stereogum. Retrieved 2013-12-01.


  31. ^ Huizenga, Tom (April 21, 2013). "First Listen: David Lang, 'Death Speaks'". NPR. Retrieved 2013-06-12.


  32. ^ "Sarah Neufeld presents the Black Ground EP + two new videos + Hero Brother Bonus Edition". Retrieved 2014-05-21.




External links





  • Official website


  • Owen Pallett on IMDb


  • "The Wait". Visit Films. Retrieved March 12, 2013.










Popular posts from this blog

How to check contact read email or not when send email to Individual?

Displaying single band from multi-band raster using QGIS

How many registers does an x86_64 CPU actually have?