Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy’s long awaited third record was finally announced last month, to shouts of joy and murmurs of amused interest. It’s something of a concept album, based on a world where the sole deity is the violinist, singer and loop-pedal genius himself, and it does, admittedly, sound rather odd. Yet for Owen Pallett, a man who named his music project after one of the nerdiest of video games, such imaginative underpinnings might not be too out of character.

More interesting, perhaps, is the scale of the record. Unlike his hastily put-together debut, Has A Good Home, or its follow-up, the gloriously-titled He Poos Clouds, Heartland is a more ambitious endeavor. I wanted to know about Spectrum, the fictitious setting for these songs, and how he ended up there. Thankfully, Owen is the obliging type, and was ready to answer various questions on the album, his literary pursuits, and his work elsewhere.

Okay. Some of these questions are a bit nerdy.
No sweat, Shane. I prefer the nerdy questions to ones about “classical background”, those ones really get on my tits.

You’ve been a bit ill lately - how are you doing now?
As of this morning, I am feeling 100% better, which is a relief. Saturday night, I literally thought I was dying. I lay on the floor of the tub, with boiling hot water pouring out of the shower head, shivering and crying. My advice to you: B supplements. Don’t stop taking them, for any reason.

Heartland has been a while in the making. Now that it’s finished, was it what you wanted?

Hard to say, really. I had a goal of creating a turgid, non-wimpy, non-blasty orchestral record, something really full of blood and guts. Not ten horns a-blazing nine harps a-swelling eight timpani pounding. Just dense and mechanical, as if a piece of orchestral music could sit next to a Gang Of Four song. And I think I killed it, in that regard. Like, I got it right.

But it did take way more out of me than I thought it should. I realized–too late–that with the orchestral albums I love, typically, the exec. producer, producer, songwriter, singer, arranger, conductor, engineer, mixer and so forth, they’re all different people. I really should’ve hired some interns, cause this record… well, it took a lot out of me.

The new material references characters from the EP like Blue Imelda and No-Face - What can you tell us about their backgrounds? What’s Lewis’ story?

I’d rather just let the album speak for itself. I listened to “Ziggy Stardust” and “Outside” hundreds of times, trying to connect the dots, unlock the secrets. Those songs hit pretty hard, but the concept part never really panned out for me.

Where did you get the idea from, of making an album of a place where you are the deity? Did Flann O’Brien play a role in it?

Actually, I got the idea from “The Lover’s Discourse”, of all places. That book is all about interpreting Barthes’ passions, and how the signifiers of a courtship can affect them. I started thinking about what role the “other” played in those dialogues, how she felt, what her interpretation might be. Barthes’ essay “The Death Of The Author” figured into it as well.

Some of the new songs seem a little different from those of He Poos Clouds - when listening to Lewis Takes Action or The Great Elsewhere, I’m partly reminded of Destroyer’s ‘Your Blues’… Did you feel any particular influences while you were writing?

Your Blues was 100% the inspiration for He Poos Clouds. That record made me feel like I could sing anything, do whatever, and it would be fine. Heartland, though, I don’t know. None of the songs on the record were inspired by other people’s songs. I did listen to the a cappella tracks of Pet Sounds a bunch before recording the vocals, but that was about it.

Huh. That’s funny about Your Blues, it really does come to mind when I hear the new songs, and that’s an album I adore. I think Destroyer’s influence on everybody is non-erasable. He really is something special.

What is your favourite song on Heartland?
I don’t have a favourite song on Heartland, they’ve all been my favourite at one time or another. Rising and falling in the polls. “Oh Heartland, Up Yours!” is a really good one, though, I sang it drunk in a single take, in Nico’s walk-in closet, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of nylon drapings and capes.

What do the Czech Symphony add to Heartland?

Everything, really. The record sounds nothing like Song Cycle, but like Song Cycle, it’s an orchestral record. There was nothing there until the orchestra laid it down.

What was it like playing with the Vienna RSO? It looked fun.

They are a world-class orchestra and the conductor was brilliant. I didn’t get any sleep the night before, and as a result, my voice was timid, so it didn’t go exactly according to plan. But yeah, it was fantastic. I want to write only orchestral songs, forever.

You’ve done some work on the forthcoming Luyas record - what was it like? From what I’ve heard of it it’s gorgeous…

I didn’t do much on the record, it was already smoking hot. Just added some bassoons and cellos to compliment the horns. A few violin ideas. I played my ARP 2600 on another song. I love that band, they are actually my favourite. Watching them play is fantastic. You’ve got Jessie with her polarizing singing voice, coupled with terribly non-intuitive instrumentation… moodswinger + french horn + kit? Difficult one to make it work. But they do make it work. Hearing them puzzle through it over the last couple of years has created some of the most affecting music I’ve heard.

Excellent news. What is the score for The Box like? It sounds like a really interesting project… Will the music get a release of its own?

The music from The Box is beautiful, if I may say so. It sounds like an old-fashioned recording… we used a small string ensemble and Win and Regine have a real Mellotron that they used to do a lot of the tracking with. It would work well as a score to “The Conversation” or something. Or “The Tenant”. It works great in “The Box”, too. I haven’t seen the final cut of the movie, I’m looking forward to its premiere.

Last time round you were reading Ulysses - did you finish it? Is it good?

While working on “Heartland”, I was getting this strange feeling… seeing videos of The-Dream making hits in a manner of hours. Hearing about Jona Bechtolt programming songs in 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I was taking a full eleven months to produce this record, and working on it day and night. The very nature of it, featuring a fifty-piece string section, full percussion, winds and brass… it seemed so preposterous, especially given that 80% of the people who’ll hear it will be listening to freely downloaded MP3s on laptop speakers.

One of the things that kept me sane about it, was to read all these gigantic, overblown classics of literature. Ulysses, sure, but also Complete Proust, Moby Dick and Gravity’s Rainbow. I’d read one of those National Geographic style “anatomy of a whale” chapters of Moby Dick and feel like Herman was holding my hand, saying, “There there. It’ll be all right.”

Analogue launches online music tv show pilot

Analogue Episode 0 from Analogue on Vimeo.

Just months after announcing that Analogue Music Magazine was to cease print, Analogue is excited to return in video format. Analogue plunges into the brand new world of online music TV with Episode 0, a pilot for a bi-monthly web series featuring interviews, music videos, short documentaries and live performances.

Analogue aspires to use an innovative visual aesthetic to explore the diverse spectrum of music we love (from indie and folk to classical and electronic) from both home and abroad. Beginning with Episode 0, Analogue breaks from the traditional approach to music television and starts afresh with a progressive format applying diverse cinematic techniques.

Episode 0 begins with Choice Prize nominated Adrian Crowley chatting about the creative process behind his lush new album ‘Season of the Sparks’ (recently picked up for european distribution by Chemikal Underground) and a haunting performance of two songs. Next comes ‘Interlude, a segment that uses original footage accompanied by specifically chosen music to emphasize a particular theme or subject. Part documentary and part music video; both vie for visual control of the piece. The premiere ‘Interlude’ focuses on the Dublin docklands and features original music from Galway based scratch/electronic artist Jimmy the Hideous Penguin. Toronto’s violin virtuoso Final Fantasy brings the pilot to a close with an interview about his soon to be released album ‘Heartland’ and a performance of tour favourite ‘Lewis Takes off his Shirt’.

The Analogue web series is directed by Graham Seely & Tim Gannon and produced by Analogue founder Brendan McGuirk.