Owen Pallett

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]

Owen Pallett
Pallett performing at Coachella 2010
Background information
Birth nameMichael James Owen Pallett
Born (1979-09-07) September 7, 1979
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Musician
  • composer
  • arranger
Instruments
Labels
Associated acts
Websiteowenpalletteternal.com

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.

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. 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.

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]

In 2018, Pallett was accused of sexual assault by an unnamed woman he allegedly met in 2015. The case was settled out of court in 2019. The woman-in-question stated that her allegations were false, and issued an apology and a retraction.[28]

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

Soundtrack albums
  • Spaceship Earth (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) - May 22, 2020

EPs

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

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"[30]
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"[31]
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[32]
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)"[33]
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
2018 Richard Russell Everything Is Recorded string arrangements, violin and viola
Kimbra Primal Heart string arrangements
Fucked Up Dose Your Dreams string arrangements, violin and viola
2019 The Mountain Goats In League with Dragons production, strings arrangements, piano, organ, and guitar
Banks III string arrangements
Odette "Do You See Me" string arrangement
Arcade Fire Baby Mine orchestral arrangement
Superchunk Acoustic Foolish string arrangements, violin, viola
Astrid Swan & Stina Koistinen Diagnosis string arrangements, violin, viola
Daniela Gesundheit Alphabet Of Wrongdoing string arrangements, violin, viola
Vegyn Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds string arrangements, violin, viola
Banks III string arrangements
2020 Jack Colwell "I Will Not Change My Ways" guitar, string arrangement
Klô Pelgag Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs string arrangements, violin, viola
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References
  1. "2006 Winners and Nominees". Polaris Music Prize. Archived from the original on April 24, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2013.
  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. "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 December 1, 2013.
  11. CJSR 88.5MHz – Edmonton Top 30 For the Week Ending: Tuesday, October 26, 2010. !Earchot charts
  12. 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 May 21, 2014.
  14. 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. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013. Retrieved March 12, 2013.
  22. Saccoccio, Sabrina (February 24, 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 June 19, 2015.
  27. "Owen Pallett States "Jian Ghomeshi Beats Women" in Open Letter". /exclaim!, By Alex Hudson, Oct 28, 2014
  28. Hogan, Marc. "Owen Pallett Settles Defamation Lawsuit Against Woman Who Accused Him of Sexual Assault". Pitchfork. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  29. "News [October 4, 2013]". October 4, 2013. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
  30. Archived October 12, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  31. "Diamond Rings – "Gentleman Who Fell" (Milla Jovovich Cover) (Stereogum Premiere)". Stereogum. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  32. Huizenga, Tom (April 21, 2013). "First Listen: David Lang, 'Death Speaks'". NPR. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  33. "Sarah Neufeld presents the Black Ground EP + two new videos + Hero Brother Bonus Edition". Retrieved May 21, 2014.
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