Sunday seems as good a day as any other to post some recommendations, so here they are (well, technically, they’re after the jump. So click “Sunday Recommendations” below). Then come back next Sunday for some more. That’s right, every Sunday. Want to see some old recommendations? Click here.

Owen Pallett (Official :: Myspace) :: With the release of Heartland so near, I’ve been revisiting some of Owen’s older material under the moniker Final Fantasy. He Poos Clouds and Has a Good Home are two incredible albums, and from what I’ve heard, Heartland will be just as good.

Spoon (Official :: Myspace) :: Transference is among my most-anticipated albums of 2010, and I’m quite pleased that it’s being released so early in the year. That January 19th release will give the album plenty of time to sink in and receive some well-deserved plays before other “most-anticipated”s start to be released.

The Wonder Years (Myspace) :: The Upsides could be the pop-punk album of 2010, and that’s all that really needs to be said about it. It’s not a life-changer, but it’s catchy. Once summer hits it’ll be getting a lot of plays.

Owen Pallett, the artist formerly known as Final Fantasy, reverted to his given name for all future endeavors. He originally chose the name Final Fantasy because playing solo “was reminiscent of the hours and hours I had spent as an adolescent playing those epic JRPGs” but “laws of trademark infringement exist for good reason.” His new album, Heartland, is out January 12th.

Merry Christmas everyone! Though I don’t really celebrate this holiday and find it just like any other day…I figure I’d conform to the conventional gift giving and give you fellow readers some presents! In the form of music! Hoooorah! I never share full albums on this site because all the songs I post are samples in hope that you fall in love with the artist and support them by buying their albums and going to their shows and yada yada yada you know the deal! But I thought I’d make an exception on this holiday and share 3 favorite compilations of mine this year. One is a live compilation. One is a DJ compilation. And the other is a highly anticipated album to be released in 2010!

Stayed tuned for my kickass mixtapes to come! And also my Top Lists! More after the jump!

Blur – Live at Hyde Park (Glastonbury)

If I hadn’t been fresh off the move from Edmonton to Montréal, it would have been no question that I would have flew overseas, thousands and thousands kilometers away to go to Glastonbury just for this one band. Blur is one of my favorite Brit bands and I sorely sorely sorely regret not making it to the festival to see this epic reunion. I remember hearing this for the first time and couldn’t stop the tears welling when songs like “Tender”, “Beetlebum” and “the Universal” came on. I could only imagine if I was there for real. Click the pictures for the compilation!

July 02:
01. She’s So High
02. Girls & Boys
03. Tracy Jacks
04. There’s No Other Way
05. Jubilee
06. Badhead
07. Beetlebum
08. Out Of Time
09. Trimm Trabb
10. Coffee & TV
11. Tender

July 03:
01. Country House
02. Oily Water
03. Chemical World
04. Sunday Sunday
05. Parklife
06. End Of A Century
07. To The End
08. This Is A Low
09. Popscene
10. Advert
11. Song 2
12. Death Of A Party
13. For Tomorrow
14. The Universal

MP3: Blur – Beetlebum (Live at Hyde Park)

MP3: Blur – Tender (Live at Hyde Park)

Modeselektor – Body Language Vol. 8 (Get Physical)

Easily my favorite DJ mix compilation this year:

Their contribution to Get Physical’s Body Language mix series is a riotous, bass-heavy affair, one which takes in all kinds of interesting developments in cutting edge contemporary dance music. MDSLKTR draw a natural line from the fizzing aqua-crunk of Rustie’s ‘Zig-Zag’ to the R&B bump of Missy Elliott’s Timbaland-produced ‘Lick Shots’, from the skippy 90s techno of G-Man’s ‘Quo Vadis’ to the tough Berghain minimalism of Norman Nodge. Dubstep – a big influence on the Moderat project – plays a pivotal role in the mix: moody, synth-led masterpieces by Peverelist and Benga recall classic Detroit techno, while Untold’s devastating ‘Anaconda’ is sheer dancefloor energy. Scuba’s ‘Klinik’ isn’t so much dubstep as broken, reductionist house music. Throughout the mix, Gernot and Sebastian astound with their ability to bring apparently disparate tunes together into perfect synchrony: who else would have thought to marry the edgy 2-step of Horsepower Productions to the austere 4/4 pulse of vintage Robert Hood, and on into the crunching digital dancehall of Major Lazer? Sometimes the links that Modeselektor forge are less bizarre but no less effective.

Taken from wordandsound, where you can also purchase the compilation!

Owen Pallett – Heartland (2010)

You probably know him as Final Fantasy. But in 2010 you will know him as Owen Pallett (due to some copyright issues). The amazing violinist who performs predominantly with loop pedals and a dizzying array of cartoon light shows knows how to make your jaws drop in musical awe.  He’s released three fantastic works: Has A Good Home in 2004, He Poos Clouds in 2006, and Plays to Please in 2008. FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!!! I’ve been waiting so long for this!!! I’ve heard the new material live a year back and neeeeeeeeeeeeeded to have a copy and finally finally finally an album is coming out! And though this isn’t technically released, I WILL have this in analog soon enough.

“The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum.  The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator.”

“The album was compositionally modeled upon the principles of electronic music.  The principles of analog synthesis informing symphonic writing, like an inversion of a Tomita record.  These songs, too, were designed to be as dense with polyphony as the Final Fantasy live shows can become.  While writing it, I kept an image in my head of putting so many notes on the page that the paper turned black.”

“This record encapsulates a whole year of work for me,  and was difficult to see through,  but immensely proud of the results.  I hope you enjoy it.”

Heartland is AMAZING and is to be released Jan 12, 2010! ENJOY!

Can’t you see why I love this man?

Heartland tracklist:

1. Midnight Directives
2. Keep The Dog Quiet
3. Mount Alpentine
4. Red Sun No. 5
5. Lewis Takes Action
6. The Great Elsewhere
7. Oh Heartland, Up Yours!
8. Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
9. Flare Gun
10. E Is For Estranged
11. Tryst With Mephistopheles
12. What Do You Think Will Happen Now?

MP3: Owen Pallett – Lewis Takes Off His Shirt

MP3: Owen Pallett – Tryst With Mephistopheles

http://www.myspace.com/ffinalffantasy

Este sairá dia 18 de Janeiro.

Friends,I began playing solo violin shows in 2004.  Although it was essentially a solo project, I named the band Final Fantasy, as the experience–and the tone of the material–was reminiscent of the hours and hours I had spent as an adolescent playing those epic JRPGs.

But the laws of trademark infringement exist for good reason, and so I am voluntarily retiring my band name.  In the new year, my record Heartland is coming out, and it is my first to be released in many territories, including Japan.  With this in mind, I feel it is in my own best interests to definitively distinguish my music from Square/Enix’s games.

So, I am no longer playing shows as Final Fantasy.  Subsequent releases, including Heartland, will be issued under my own name, Owen Pallett.  Prior releases will sometime soon be re-packaged and re-issued.

I thank Square/Enix their kindness and support, and I thank you all for your understanding.

Salud!

Owen Pallett

http://www.mediafire.com/?t24yx5lj34m

This list represents the compilation of information found on bands’ Web sites, other media sites, and Youtube interviews – plus a little speculation on my part… But not that much.

25 – Coheed and Cambria – Year of the Black Rainbow (April, 2010)

This was posted on the news page of the prog- and metal-inspired rock band’s Web site on December 7: “Our new album will be titled, Year of the Black Rainbow, and is set for release in April 2010.” The post also indicated that the release will be followed by a headline tour of the US, the UK and Europe which will include festival stops. The album will serve as a prequel for the band’s previous albums which all fit into a concept known as “The Amory Wars.”

24 – Angels and Airwaves – Love (Feb. 14, 2010)

Easily the most ambitious release yet from Tom DeLonge and Angels and Airwaves is scheduled for a Valentine’s Day, 2010 release. Love will include a CD of all original songs and a film of the same name – not a documentary about the band, like their previous film Start The Machine, but an actual feature film about an astronaut stranded alone in space. DeLonge told Billboard that Love is the ‘pinnacle of his creativity’ and likened it to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. He also said it would be released for free.

23 – Plants and Animals – TBA (2010 release speculated)

Back in April, the Juno-nominated Montreal band let fans know, via their Web site, that they had been recording at The Treatment Room in Montreal, where they’d laid down Parc Avenue. In September, on MySpace, they revealed that they had also apparently been recording at La Frette studios near Paris. Later that month they said they would be mixing the album in Paris, and joked on their Web site (plantsandanimals.ca) that they had chosen the cover for their next album:

22 – Born Ruffians – Say It (Early 2010)

Having recorded and mixed the album in the fall and late summer, the Toronto trio just revealed, on December 14, that their second full length would be called Say It. Singer and guitarist Luke Lalonde told Stereogum.com that they worked with Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear producer Rusty Santos on the album. “We just want it to sound like us live … but better,” he said.

21 – Spoon – Transference (January 19, 2010)

Austin rock immortals Spoon will be putting out a new album in January called Transference, their fifth album released on N.C. indie label Merge Records. You can preview “Got Nuffin,” the lead single from Transference (first featured on an EP of the same name released back in June) on Pitchfork.com.

20 – The National – TBA (Spring 2010)

In mid-July, guitarist Bryce Dessner told Pitchfork that he, his twin brother Aaron, and the rest of the Brooklyn-based group were already pretty far along with a new record. The group built their own recording studio in Brooklyn following the release of their highly praised 2007 album Boxer, he said. “It’s the first time we’ve ever had our own space, so we’re just working our asses off trying to get that done. And we’re kind of pinching ourselves because it seems like it’s actually coming together,” Dessner said.

19 – Caribou – TBA (2010 release speculated)

After winning the 2008 Polaris Prize for his 2007 album Andora, Daniel Snaith, brainchild of the Canadian electronic act Caribou, wrote on his Website that part of the prize money would be going towards the creation of a new album. This past May, he posted an update saying “I’ve been busy making music for a new Caribou album which I’m really excited about.”

18 – Owen Pallett – Heartland (January 12, 2010)

Another Canadian artist working on the follow up to a Polaris Prize-winning album is Owen Pallett, who formerly worked under the title Final Fantasy. Pallett won the prize in 2007 for his album He Poos Clouds. Pallett told Pitchfork that the album is a concept about a farmer named Lewis, whose name pops up in some of the song titles. Featured on the album, apparently, are Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara, and the Czech Symphony.

17 – The Hold Steady – TBA (2010 release expected)

The Brooklyn-based band debuted a number new songs, five in total, during live shows on their recent American and Canadian tour. Guitarist Tad Kubler told obviatemedia.net at the end of September that they’ll be making their new record at their own pace. “I’d like to have a record out early [2010], but there’s a lot of other variables that are involved in putting out records… We’ve always sort of put a deadline of when we’d want to have a record out or a record finished. This one I’d like to be at a little more relaxed pace,” Kubler said, “We just kind of want to go in and record without a real deliberate date in mind for when things need to be wrapped up.”

16 – OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (January 12, 2010)

Due out at the start of 2010 on Capitol Records, Of The Blue Colour of the Sky will be the third major release from Chicago’s OK Go. If the first single “WTF?”, which comes with a suitably psychedelic music video, is any indication, the band have taken a less straight forward approach on this album, veering away from their edgey pop-friendly rock towards the funky and the weird.

15 – Drake – Thank Me Later (March, 2010)

2009 was a big year for Degrassi: The Next Generation actor turned international rap star Drake – and he only released an EP. Scheduled to be released in March of 2010, Drake has said that one song on Thank Me Later will feature Jay Z, but that R&B, rather than hip hop, could make up the majority of the songs.

14 – Hot Chip – One Life Stand (February 8, 2010)

One Life Stand will be the fourth album from the Grammy-nominated British electropop group. So far two singles have been released, the title track, and “Take It In” which can be previewed on Pitchfork. Frontman Alexis Taylor told NME that the songs on One Life Stand are “more mid-tempo and disco influenced at the moment,” compared to their last album Made in the Dark. “Things are a bit calmer this time,” Taylor said.

13 – Fleet Foxes – TBA (Late 2010 release expected)

“We’re working on stuff every day,” Robin Flecknold, singer and guitarist for Seattle’s Fleet Foxes, told Pitchfork in an interview in early December. “Now is when we’re writing and starting to record the new album.” He also elaborated on the sonic direction they’re headed in. “There are definitely super-upbeat songs that are being worked on for the new record. But as a whole, it’s probably a little bit less upbeat [than their self-titled debut]. Not darker – some of it has a more exuberant feeling to it. But some of it is just more realistic,” said Flecknold.

12 – Circa Survive – TBA (early 2010 release expected)

Studio recording in Toronto has finished for Circa Survive’s third full length album. The Philadelphia group teased fans with a number of studio videos posted on their site documenting recording and featuring snippets of songs, but they have still yet to come out with the name of the album. This will be the band’s first record released on Atlantic Records, having completed their contract with Equal Vision.

11 – Vampire Weekend – Contra (January 12, 2010)

Expect the sophomore release from New York’s Vampire Weekend in the middle of January. The band’s multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij produced this effort, as he did on their debut. Dude has ‘Batman’ right in his name. So you know it’ll be good.

10 – Sigur Ros – TBA (2010 release expected)

At the end of May the Icelandic musicians posted on their Website that they had almost completed recording a new album at Sundlaugin studio in Álafoss. The post indicated that the record will be “slower and more ambient” than their previous two albums. No release date is set; however, March 22 is when lead singer Jónsi Birgisson’s solo album Go is scheduled to drop.

09 – My Chemical Romance – TBA (2010 release expected)

My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way recently said the fourth album from his group has been heavily ‘80’s-influenced, name-dropping metal god-fathers Judas Priest and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The band has been in the studio since August; no release date has been set.

08 – Stone Temple Pilots – TBA (2010 release expected)

Scott Weiland and the reunited Stone Temple Pilots are reportedly nearly finished their first album since 2001’s Shangri-La Dee Da. The band postponed some scheduled shows in December and January to finish the long-awaited album that will be produced by Don Was (The Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop).

07 – No Doubt – TBA (2010 release speculated)

Back in 2008, almost as soon as they’d announced a reunion tour would take place in 2009, the Anaheim group also said, yes, they’d be working on a new album. Delays arose, not the least of which was singer Gwen Stefani’s pregnancy with her second child, but drummer Adrian Young said the band would be touring with a mobile studio on their bus, and would eventually get around to recording some new No Doubt material. Rock Steady, released in 2001, was the last full length put out by the group.

06 – Arcade Fire – TBA (2010 release expected)

Montreal’s Arcade Fire will reportedly have their third album out by the second half of 2010, NME.com reported early in December. The band convened to work on the follow up to 2007’s Neon Bible in the summer, and will likely spend next summer headlining summer festivals.

05 – Yeasayer – Odd Blood (February 9, 2010)

A deliciously bizarre video already exists on the interwebs for the lead single off Odd Blood, “Ambling Alp.” The fusion of psychedelic and world music seems to have paid off for the group, who played on the same stage as Radiohead at Lollapalooza in 2008, and rocked Bonnaroo in 2009, all off the power of just their debut, All Hour Cymbals. Expect a February release for their follow up.

04 – Wolf Parade – TBA (2010 release speculated)

Spencer Krug, one half of the two-headed songwriting team behind Montreal’s Wolf Parade (the other half being Dan Boeckner, also of The Handsome Furs), told an Irish interviewer in September that the band was getting back together in November to start working on their third album, a follow up to 2008’s think piece At Mount Zoomer. 

03 – MGMT – Congratulations (Spring 2010)

The Brooklyn band finished recording their follow up to the much, much lauded Oracular Spectacular during the summer in Malibu. The new album is reportedly influenced by the band’s incredible boost in popularity since their debut. Beyond their own projects the duo of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden have recently collaborated with The Flaming Lips on Embryonic and with Kid Cudi on Man on the Moon: The End of Day.

2 Blink 182 – TBA (2010 release speculated)

Following their 2009 reunion, Blink 182 has already recorded a couple new songs, with one being featured on Travis Barker’s upcoming solo album. Bassist Mark Hoppus said they’ll be in the studio in January. Will that mean an album before 2010 is out? It’s entirely possible.

01 – Dr Dre – Detox (2010 release expected)

Repeatedly pushed back from its originally scheduled 2004 release, 2010 is supposedly going to be the year when fans will finally get to hear Detox, the third album from Dr. Dre – the one that he’s been talking about since 2002. Dre seems to have been more concerned with producing other artists and selling Dr. Pepper than putting out his own album in recent months, but when this does drop, expect big things as Dre has told MTV the album will basically be a ‘Hip Hop musical’ where collaborators will appear as characters in an overarching story. Think “Guilty Conscience,” but for an entire album. The Rock world got its Chinese Democracy in 2008, and it looks as though the Hip Hop world will finally get Detox in 2010.

This is such an amazing song!

Final Fantasy – This Is The Dream Of Win & Regine

Even if you’ve never listened to a Final Fantasy record, it’s likely you will have encountered Owen Pallett’s music at some point. As well as his solo work and with Les Mouches, Pallett has written more grandiose string arrangements for Beirut, Fucked Up, The Last Shadow Puppets and Arcade Fire that have propelled these bands to success. While Pallett has always been seen as the mastermind working behind the scenes, rumour has it that the forthcoming Final Fantasy record, Heartland, has the immediacy of the records he’s worked on with other bands, and is set to thrust Pallett into the limelight.

With the record nearing its 11th January release date, Domino have given us the taste of what the record might sound like with lead single, Lewis Takes Action.  The Lewis from the song is supposedly central to the record’s theme, which Pallett describes (via Pitchfork), “The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator.” This sounds fascinating and I’m positive Heartland will be the first great record of 2010.

Download: Final Fantasy – Lewis Takes Action (via sign-up to mailing list)

Owen Pallett – aka Final Fantasy – became well known as a guest musician and string arranger for the likes of Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, and Death From Above 1979. Pallett went on to form his own one-man-band called Final Fantasy, which has since taken him to a whole new musical level. His second album as Final Fantasy – 2006’s He Poos Clouds - won the innagural Polaris prize, and Pallett is set to release his latest full length, 2010’s Heartland.

Feb. 10 @ St. Matthews United Church, Halifax
Feb. 12 @ To Be Announced, St. John’s

I thought I would do a blog post about some recent songs that aren’t as widely appreciated as they should be. So here it is.

I often find myself vexed at the sheer, transparent wrongness of the blogosphere when it comes to certain significant issues. Chief among these is the issue of “which song/band should we subject to an unseemly critical bukkakeing this week?” This is because it is almost never a band that is deserving of the level of fevered, pant-moistening hyperbole that it generates. In fact, it is invariably just one more pitiful shower in a long line of execrable haircut scenesters with ineffably stupid names, all of whom peddle predictably joyless, boilerplate shite. Sad, but true.

With that in mind, here are some songs by bands that are joyful and, generally speaking, don’t have stupid haircuts:

Bombadil – Honeymoon

Rather than bore you with my own effusive spiel on the charms of Bombadil, I have instead selected a tantalising factual morsel from their wikipedia page with which to whet your appetite:

“Bombadil dresses for shows in a style characteristic of elderly Bolivian men, employing fedora hats, suspenders, and old, faded pants and shirts.”

They are pictured above in their civvies.

Pomegranates – Southern Ocean

Pomegranates’ wikipedia page unfortunately contains no choice quotes for me to pillage, so instead I shall just say that this is the best song I know of that features swimming as a major theme. Awesome.

Music Go Music – Explorers Of The Heart

I always think that it’s exceptionally lazy journalism to describe bands as “such-and-such-meets-so-and-so”. But then I’m exceptionally lazy, and this sounds like ABBA meets De Novo Dahl. That comparison will make perfect sense when you listen to it, provided you have the first clue who De Novo Dahl are. If not, what the hell is wrong with you?

Fun. – Walking The Dog

Fun. (or more properly, fun.) have had quite a bit of coverage on the blogs to be fair, but not enough to satiate my abiding sense of injustice. Nate from The Format (RIP) is one of the main members of fun., and if that isn’t enough to sell you on them then I don’t what is. If you don’t like The Format then there’s a good chance that you’re already beyond help anyway.

The Rumble Strips – Not The Only Person

This song features string arrangements by Owen Pallett. I don’t think that there’s much else that you need to know, really.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Cardinal Rules

Unfathomably, I’ve only ever seen this song blogged about once, despite it being quite stupidly brilliant. Srsly WTF? SSLYBY FTW!

You should download and listen to all of these songs because they’re great. Then you should go and buy the albums because motherfuckers need to eat. OK?

Well, it’s November 15th, and I’m halfway through my own personal NaNoWriMo challenge.  Two weeks down, two to go, and I hit the half-way mark in terms of word count about an hour and a half ago: 

25,350

Putting that in big bold numerals made it feel more momentous than it really is.

I mean, 25,000 words is a lot, but I’m not so much “writing a 50,000 word novel” as “writing 50,000 words worth of potential novel scenes and internal character stuff, most of which I will probably throw out.”  Because I’m inefficient.  And also because my characters are…strong-willed, shall we say?…and get all sullen and silent and bitchy if I’ve got them saying and doing things they wouldn’t say or do.  Hell, they get bitchy if I have them do things they would do, but for the wrong reasons. *

The fact that I’m an inefficient writer isn’t exactly a surprise.  To make a book of 43 poems, I wrote at least three times that many.  And while I don’t feel like those numbers are uncommon, you have to remember that with poetry, each poem you make is ostensibly complete.  I mean, yeah, I wrote a crap-ton of poems and only a few of them ended up in a book. But the ones left over were still poems. I could send them out to magazines and give them some material purpose that made the hours I spent on them worth it.

But with prose…?  Shit.  You can’t have an ounce of pride in you to write prose. The necessity of writing three times as much as you end up with is exponentially more laborious and demoralizing, and you are never going to make it if you have any concept of pride or shame or even practicality.  You have to be completely honest and sincere when you come to that blank page in service to your story.  Completely, delusionally honest and sincere.

I want to write a 500 page novel…and this means that I’ll be looking at 1,500 – 2,000 pages of stuff I throw out when all is said and done.  Stuff I will throw out.  Not stuff that didn’t make the cut but serves some other purpose.  Stuff that is junk. 

Useless, useless junk.

Yeah, I know that the scene I wrote today** probably won’t even make it into the novel, but that I need to know what happens in it so that I can write the scene that will.  So maybe these thousands of words aren’t useless; maybe it’s more precise to say that they will be used up.  Like squeezing a bunch of oranges to make orange juice…. 

Shut up, I know that was a shitty metaphor.  I just wrote 3,000+ words; my brain is fried.

The point is, it’s uncomfortable to write for several hours a day and feel like you haven’t accomplished anything. 

So, in order to motivate myself, I’ve taken to keeping a queue of YouTube videos ready and waiting for the moment when I need to spend five minutes watching ANOTHER NEW MOON TRAILER,*** or Owen Pallet being all skinny and talented and sweetly unattainable.  My old friend A-dawg scored this particular video for me (and has been known to stick the red pins in the voodoo doll on my behalf, bless his heart!). I have it on good authority that A plans to marry dear Owen, but he’s gamely agreed to convince his nerdy groom to kiss me once (and mean it) before he sweeps him off into the sunset.**** 

And I don’t care who you are; you’d make out with him too:

Sigh.  Back at it tomorrow.  2k.

*Sudden, unwelcome insight into what it must have been like to raise me…  Oh, my poor, poor mother.

**Twice (yes, twice), once from one character’s perspective and once from another’s.

***ONLY 139 HOURS TO GO!

****He has no idea how seriously I am taking this bargain.

Guess what happened to me at the Mountain Goats concert?  You’ll never guess!

But first, how bout a little context?  Last week during a meeting of The Handcrafts and Afternoon Tea Society for Refined Ladies,* The Erstwhile Flaneur issued this good-natured beat-down of the content here at Hyperbolic Obsessive: 

“Your blog posts are basically a catalogue of people you want to hump,” she said matter-of-factly as she sewed up the tentacles of a sparkly purple octopus costume she later wore—with heels and pearls—to a Halloween party. **

And, honestly, how could I respond to such an incisive summary?  She’s right. So I laughed and said, “I know.  I fall in love every day.” 

At the time it was meant as a joke.  I listed various people at the top of the Bite My Lip & Try to Stay Calm list, and we all sipped our spiked cider and had a laugh.   But now that I think about it, I’m wondering if I wasn’t unwittingly precise. 

I read books and fall in love.

I go to see movies or watch TV shows and fall in love.

I go to the Farmers’ Market to buy cider from Gorgeous Cider Dude*** and fall in love.

I go to concerts….and fall in love. 

Oh, don’t act surprised. Of course I  fell in love—again!—when Cooking with Two Dudes, JLK, and I went to see The Mountain Goats play at The High Noon on Friday.

John Darnielle, screamin' it up

The concert itself was surprisingly balls-out; despite the usually spare, sad-bastard acoustic arrangements on the Mountain Goats’ albums, they rocked out.  And since I was hanging with the press and an uber-fan, we were smashed up against the stage and singing along the whole time, which is, incidentally, the only way to see a concert at High Noon, a venue where concert-goers habitually spend a decent amount of money to TALK THROUGH THE WHOLE SHOW.  LOUDLY.  WTF?

Anyway, I’d never been to a Mountain Goats show, and had imagined John Darnielle would be kind of scary and intense, with a poison-rapier wit, if he had any humor at all.  But the dude was smiling—like, just-won-the-lottery smiling— throughout the entire set.  It was a little weird trying to reconcile Darnielle’s joyful sincerity with the content of his music.  Cooking summed up the off-kilter effect brilliantly in her online review for the Cap Times’ 77-Squared, which you can read here:

The band finished off with a downright giddy performance of the group’s most relentlessly bleak song, “No Children,” a song Darnielle introduced as being “like an aspirin, but for the venom that has come to define the way you feel about the person you love.” From this songwriter to this crowd, that constituted a laugh line, after which the band sent us all out with a joyous sing-along of the lines, “I am drowning/there is no sign of land/You are coming down with me,/ hand in unlovable hand.” It was quite possibly the unlikeliest feel-good concert ever.

“The Mountain Goats,” she says, “make the world’s most dysfunctional make-out music,” so perhaps it was only fitting that I should fall hard at their concert.  But I didn’t fall in love with a Goat—oh no. 

I fell in love with a geek. A tall, pale, skinny geek with a violin and a penchant for role-playing games who was the opening act.   And is also gay.****

His name is Owen Pallett, and his band—which is basically just him, his violin, and looping machines—is called Final Fantasy.

It’s named after a video game. 

And his EPs are full of songs titled after kinds of magic used in D&D. 

I knew this, and I also knew Pallett had done some work with Arcade Fire.  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the contrast, but you know—it’s just the opening act, right? Right. 

And then he walked out on stage, and I turned into that Indoor Kid from Wet Hot American Summer; I was all, “Alexa!  We need a Druid, and you’ve cast a Level 5 Charm Spell on me.” 

I like to say that my heart is capacious, but shit—who knew it had room in it for D&D?  I mean, how capacious are we talking here?  Ocean liner?  Aircraft carrier?  Could I love a serial killer?  A golf-playing, Republican accountant? It seems there is nothing I can’t find perfectly charming so long as the person doing it comes in an Owen Pallett-shaped package.  

I kinda wanted to lick the sweat off his temples

The sweet spot for this particular crush hit this afternoon, while I listened to about 3,720,457,027,301 looping plays of “Many Lives 49 MP” and dug up this video of Pallett’s solo rendition of Arcade Fire’s “No Cars Go,” a song which has never failed, in any of its incarnations, send crazed little fractures through my brain.

This is probably unhealthy.  But…I like the feeling of falling in love.  Even if it’s for just a few hours at a concert.  I like the crackling awareness of everything around you that comes with being minutely aware of another person.  I like feeling that sudden center open up around someone, and how it can make so many other things seem…contingent.  

I like it so much, in fact, that I manufacture it in my head when it isn’t extant in my life.

 And, really…what better raw material to begin such an obsessive project with than the tense, emotional frisson of a concert?  Of course I fall in love at concerts!  When I am in an audience, I’m there to be seduced.   That’s kind of how it works, isn’t it?  You fall in love with the person on stage—or some alluring edit of them—so that you can open up enough to accept what they’re expressing with their art.  If I wasn’t a little in love every time I went to see a show, everyone who ever took a stage would probably look like an idiot to me.  And I’d miss out on discovering the next wing of rooms in my capacious heart.

Minor awesomeness seizure

*Read: Stitch ‘n Bitch with cake and booze.

**Lest you think I say this with any judgment, allow me re-iterate:  I went to the same party as a sparkly vampire. 

***I must say, though, I defy you not to fall in love with Gorgeous Cider Dude.

****This has never, ever stopped me from having a sweet, dead-end crush.

The Mountain Goats (TMG) opened their fall tour Nov. 4 at the Ladies Literary Club in Grand Rapids Michigan. The venue is an old theater–the building itself is a registered historical landmark–that Calvin College bought and turned into a concert venue. TMG was the third concert I have seen there (Andrew Bird and Rosie Thomas’s Christmas concert were the other two), and I have been impressed with the atmosphere and acoustics each times. The musicians are on the theatrical stage, which helps draw you in to the performance and gives the whole experience a classy-hipster feel.

The opening act for the tour is Final Fantasy, the recording name of violinist-singer Owen Pallett. Pallett creates dense, multiple violin loops which he then sings and plays over. The effect is similar to Andrew Bird’s “Anonanimal,” though Final Fantasy’s rhythms and song progressions are less conventional and accessible than some of Bird’s recent work.

I hadn’t even seen a picture of John Darnielle, singer for The Mountain Goats, before the concert, so I didn’t know what to expect in terms of his stage presence. From the TMG songs I’ve heard, my mental picture was of an introspective, somewhat defensive and distant guy who would have difficulty connecting with the crowd. I also thought he might be balding and slightly overweight.

But no, Darnielle looks rather fit, and instead of being reserved onstage, he more often had difficulty containing his joy and energy. It felt kind of like those reunion tours with bands who used to hate the business (and each other) but have reformed because they realize how much they enjoy making music. They might not look as young and cool as they once did, but they don’t care. I don’t think Darnielle ever looked really young or very cool, and I’m almost positive he has never cared. He often seemed surprised at how good his band sounded. My sister-in-law said she thought he must have been hard to keep under control as a child.

All of the energy in the performance was counterbalanced by the lyrical weight of TMG’s songs, which have often dealt with desperation and abuse, and their new album, The Life of the World to Come, adds martyrdom and theodicy to the mix. He introduced one song by saying, “Now I’m going to play a song about someone getting tortured to death,” and it was not the song I was thinking of. Every song title on the record is a Bible verse, which led Darnielle to joke that he hopes a song from it become a big hit so everyone will shout out, “Deuteronomy 2:10!” at concerts.

Darnielle mentioned during his introduction to “Hebrews 11:40″ that he wrote the song on a tour stop in Salt Lake City, because he was thinking about Mormons and how important the resurrection of the body is to them. He’s Catholic himself, he said, so he can kind of go either way on the “get your body back forever/never see it again” question.

One of my favorite new TMG songs is a bonus track from the new record, “Enoch 18:14,” so I was both surprised and please that he played it during the set. The song’s chorus:

You and your brother
You both escaped the curse
So you can’t comprehend what it’s like

made me think it was about his very difficult childhood, which he wrote about in detail on The Sunset Tree, but Darnielle said that the song was actually inspired by a video game called Ruin Sphere, and that the chorus comes directly from one of the game’s cut scenes.

The Goats record I know (and like) best is Heretic Pride, and I was a little disappointed he didn’t play more songs from it–I was especially hoping for “Autoclave,” “Sax Rohmer #1,” or “Lovecraft in Brooklyn”–but when you have as many good songs as Darnielle (he’s been recording since the early 90s), it’s inevitable that someone’s favorites won’t get played. His duet with Owen Pallett on two songs early in the set was also a highlight. Overall, I wished the concert would have lasted longer, which is always a sign it was a good show.

“What Time is Love” by Max Tundra

Some more live music for today’s VOTD; this time, it’s from a Passion Pit concert at Koko. The band was supported by Max Tundra (aka Ben Jacobs), who performs his rendition of What Time is Love by The KLF in this clip. Video is a bit wonky for the first 12 seconds, but after that it’s equal parts sheer insanity, genius, and hipster headbobbing action. Especially at 0:38 onwards, where Jacobs shows off some of his dance moves — some crazy yoga-inspired shit right there. I’d definitely love to see him live, if the energy of his performance is any indication. Owen Pallett, better known as Final Fantasy (the artist), described Max Tundra live as “the best music performance of my life”:

Max and I met in Barcelona in 2005 at Primavera Sound. His slot was at 4am. He put on a mask, wrapped himself up in tape, and played forty minutes of music made mostly using Amiga sample tracker software from the late 1980s. There was virtuosic melodica playing, Pointer Sisters-style singing, and an eight-minute version of “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound Of Music. I was wasted and ended up passing out on a beach in my underwear. When the sun rose, I woke up with dried merengue and sand glued to my hair, and in a daze, I realized that I had just witnessed nothing less than the best music performance of my life … It is dance music, it is discourse, it is teen sex comedy, it is a video game, it is a dance troupe, it is a thirteen course meal with Amontillado.

In a word: epic. If you haven’t been won over yet, just listen to this glistening remix of his track Which Song, fresh off the press. Coincidentally, the remix is yet again the handiwork of Passion Pit, who wrapped the original song to the presets of Little Secrets… enjoy!

“Which Song (Passion Pit Remix)” by  Max Tundra (download)

Final Fantasy, la banda encabezada por Owen Pallett, violinista reconocido por sus colaboraciones con bandas como Arcade Fire o Beirut, en las que siempre deja su inconfundible sello, ha anunciado que publicará su tercer disco en enero de 2010, se titulará Heartland y contará con interesantes colaboraciones: Arcade Fire y The Last Shadow Puppets. Y además ha sido remezclado por Rusty Santos, de Animal Collective.

Todo esto hace que esté ya contando las horas para el día del lanzamiento, unido a que últimamente no puedo parar de escuchar sus dos álbumes anteriores (Has A Good Home (2005) y He Poos Clouds (2006), que recomiendo encarecidamente, junto con sus EPs y algunas colaboraciones, muchos de ellos disponibles en Spotify).

También nos ha desvelado ya el que será el tracklist del disco:

1. ‘Midnight Directives’
2. ‘Keep The Dog Quiet’
3. ‘Mount Alpentine’
4. ‘Red Sun No 5’
5. ‘Lewis Takes Action’
6. ‘The Great Elsewhere’
7. ‘Oh Heartland, Up Yours!’
8. ‘Lewis Takes Off His Shirt’
9. ‘Flare Gun’
10. ‘E Is For Estranged’
11. ‘Tryst With Mephistopheles’
12. ‘What Do You Think Will Happen Now?’

Para quien no conozca el trabajo de Owen Pallett, aquí dejo This Is The Dream Of Win and Regine, una de sus canciones más conocidas, del álbum Has A Good Home:

Y su divertida participación en los Take Away Shows de La Blogotheque, en que vemos a Owen tocando su violín mientras camina (o corre) por la Rue Des Martyrs de París:

Não, não é a OST [Original SoundTrack] de nenhum jogo de videogame que vou postar agora caso pensem que se trata da franquia da Square – apesar de eu ter adorado zerar o FFVII e o FFVIII e ainda ter os cds de FFIX pra terminar. Cof, cof… Enfim, Final Fantasy é o projeto solo do violinista Owen Pallett, que por muitas vezes está em shows dando apoio ao grupo The Arcade Fire e o nome do projeto foi sim escolhido por se tratar de seu jogo virtual predileto. O experimentalismo se encontra presente em grande parte de sua obra e já foram lançados muitos álbuns e recentemente o EP Plays to Please.

Aqui para download o EP Plays to Please      Download

1 – Horsetail Feathers

Vor ganz genau einem Jahr sah sie sich auf DuRöhre folgendes Video an:

Tja, da war’s um sie geschehen. Wie die Geschichte ausgeht, wissen wir ja alle.

The happiest looking grey clouds

So I’ve been feeling down and tired for the past couple of days.  This may be retribution from my late night at the studio on Tuesday.  This may be Seasonal Affective Disorder whose acronym makes me chuckle. It might just be because I’m in need of some more song writting.

Regardless the day goes on!

Last night Voyno and I checked out Final Fantasy

And we drank beer

Peace,Love&GoodVibes
SnowDove,ArmsUp

p.s. check out this for live streaming Austin City Limits this weekend!

Wer etwas über Computerspiele lesen will, kann an der Stelle gleich wieder abbrechen. Denn der 30jährige Kanadier Owen Pallett hat sein Projekt Final Fantasy zwar nach dem gleichnamigen Freund der Zocker benannt, aber da enden auch schon die Parallelen. Statt der Konsole bedient Pallett vor allem seine Geige, die er auf der Bühne vor Songbeginn immer wieder loopt und eine neue Melodie über die Loops spielt und dazu singt er. Und was macht er sonst so? Zum Beispiel Orchesterarrangeents für die Last Shadow Puppets, die Pet Shop Boys, Mika, Beirut und vor allem seine Freunde von Arcade Fire schreiben.

Am 8. Januar 2010 erscheint auf Domino Records sein drittes Album “Heartland”, über das Pallett erzählt: “The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum. The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator.” Als Gäste dabei sind Nico Muhly und der Drummer von Arcade Fire, Jeremy Gara. Über das Paar an der Spitze von dessen Band schrieb Pallett schon für sein Debüt das tolle “This is the dream of Win and Regin”:

Und das ist die Tracklist von “Heartland”:

01 Midnight Directives
02 Keep the Dog Quiet
03 Mount Alpentine
04 Red Sun No. 5
05 Lewis Takes Action
06 The Great Elsewhere
07 Oh Heartland, Up Yours!
08 Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
09 Flare Gun
10 E Is for Estranged
11 Tryst With Mephistopheles
12 What Do You Think Will Happen Now?

Owen Pallett performing

This is the 29th post in our Musician of the Day series.

Owen Pallett was born in 1979 with the full name of Michael James Owen Pallett. He began studying the violin when he was a toddler and even composed music by the time he was 13. His musical compositions can be heard in the game Traffic Department 2192, and he has also scored two films and composed two operas.

In 2002, when he graduated from college he released an album with the band Les Mouches and released two more albums with them before they went defunct in 2004.

He began creating his own style of music under the name of Final Fantasy because of his admiration for the video game. He released his first album in 2005 entitled Has a Good Home. Adventure.exe from this album might be familiar because it was used in a number of Orange commercials in 2006. Owen reportedly did not authorize this but the company was given rights through a misunderstanding with his label. Because of the mix up Owen gives all money earned from Orange to Doctors without Borders.

His second album, He Poos Clouds was released in 2006 and it is composed entirely of string quartet arrangements. Eight of the ten songs on the album relate to the different schools of magic in Dungeons and Dragons. The album won the coveted 2006 Polaris Music Prize, but Owen was uncomfortable receiving money from a competition run by a cell phone company, and donated all the money to bands who were struggling.

In 2007, his song This is the Dream of Win & Regine was used without permission in a Wiener Stadtwerke commercial. Instead of going to court he approached the company to sponsor a music festival of their creation. The Maximum Black Festival played Vienna, Berlin and London in 2007.

Currently Owen continues touring and working on his music. His third album Heartland is set to release in the first week of 2010. Whatever happens it is certain that Owen Pallett is one of the most morally bound in the business

To learn more about Owen Pallett visit his Official Website or last.fm.

I am so stoked for Heartland. This man is amazing live.

“I am overrated,” said the sculptor to the sea.
“I’ve been praised for all the ways the marble leaves the man, and I was wrong to try and free him.”
And as for me, I am a vector, I am muscle, I am bone.
The sun upon my shoulders and the horse between my legs,
This is all I know.

lyrics of this man

FFFFFFFinal FFFFFFantasy

Photo by Nick Zinner yo

IT’S A CALL
I FELL INTO YOUR ARMS THAT NIGHT
DON’T ASK

I was reading an internet article last night of teh Pokemon Coma Theroy, whereby all of the Pokemon animated series is just in Ash’s head. Brock apperently represents Ash’s sexuality NO WAY WHO’D OF GUESSED

I'm sure he has eyes in there somewhere. I'm sure of it.

By the way I do love you Robin Pecknold, but oh my there were other albums released last year : P

love yee

xxx

John Darnielle and company, also known to most as The Mountain Goats are back for another round, this time getting a little more spiritual with their newest record. The Mountain Goats are due to release The Life Of The World To Come which will be a 12 track album in which every song is named after a Bible verse. Owen Pallett is also on board to conduct some strings for the album which will be quite a nice touch. The record will be released on October 6th via 4AD. It surely is going to be interesting, but as long as it has the Darnielle touch it will be good.

Listen to a new track by The Mountain Goats ‘Genesis 3:23′