Alpentine

New tour dates, arrangements, and collaborations

Sat, 18 May 2013 13:00:00 -0400

A few new tour dates have been announced for Europe in the summer. In addition, Owen will be headlining Arboretum Arts Festival in Ottawa. Heartland Festival, the Swiss music festival named after the album, will have its lineup curated by Owen this year.

Some YouTube videos from the recent tour with Grizzly Bear:

"Half Gate"
"Infernal Fantasy"
"Soldier's Rock"
"Song for Five or Six" at Milwaukee
"Song for Five or Six" at Kansas City
"Song for Five or Six" at Dallas
"The Riverbed"

Jim Guthrie's new album Takes Time has violin by Owen Pallett on the song "Wish I Were You".

It has been over a decade since Owen first arranged for Jim Guthrie at the beginning of his career.

The National's new album Trouble Will Find Me has violin by Owen on the song "I Need My Girl". The song debuted back in 2011 on Q TV.

Death Speaks, the David Lang piece performed by Shara Worden, Bryce Dessner (from The National), Nico Muhly, and Owen Pallett, has been released.

David Lang relates Franz Schubert to modern indie rock and asks, "What would it be like to put together an ensemble of successful indie composer-performers and invite them back into classical music, the world from which they sprang?"

At Weird Canada's Wyrd IV show, Owen played violin and piano for a collaborative set between Jennifer Castle and Wyrd Visions. Mechanical Forest Sound recorded their performance of "You Don't Have to Be", a song by Jennifer Castle.

If you use the iOS/Android app Snapchat, add Owen at speccyoxen. The screenshot at the left was taken by wibnutler.

That's cool, I guess

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:04:01 -0400

At Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' show on March 23 in Toronto, Owen Pallett and members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor comprised the string section. Also present was a local children's choir along with opener Sharon Van Etten.

Nicole Mercedes performed a cover of "This Is the Dream of Win & Regine".

In the novel Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery by Jeffrey Round, in chapter 16 ("The Dog Days of Autumn"), on pages 272–3, Owen Pallett is name dropped. Here is the excerpt:

The Wait / Take-Away Show

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 03:46:34 -0500

The Wait is a film written and directed by M Blash about grief: Two sisters (Jena Malone and Chloë Sevigny) hope for their dead mother's resurrection after receiving a call from a psychic. The film premieres this week at the SXSW Film Festival. The score is composed by Owen Pallett and its release has not yet been determined.

M Blash had previously directed the music videos for "Blue Imelda" and "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt".

La Blogothèque has published a set of Take-Away Shows from MusicNOW 2011 and 2012. In the last video, Owen Pallett covers "Canary" by The Luyas, for whose album he had performed and arranged. After the credits is a rehearsal clip with The National.

We can also take this opportunity to look back on Owen's first Take-Away Show, when he played "Your Light Is Spent" and "Horsetail Feathers".

U.S. tour with Grizzly Bear

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 03:55:39 -0500

Grizzly Bear will be supported by Owen Pallett for their American tour in spring. Check their tour page for the latest. Watch a video of them performing "Half Gate" with Owen on violin.

New album 75% done

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:54:47 -0500

The Guardian has a short interview with Owen Pallett interspersed with rehearsal clips—watch from 0:40 to 1:40. Owen wrote about the issues of performing in acoustic venues on the forum.

The first video recording of new song "The Secret Seven" is on YouTube.

Monolithe has a series of clips from a 2011 show in France. The gist of the French captions is the interviewer has no idea what Owen is talking about (touring and pedals) and is simply mesmerized by his facial features/body parts. Skip to 9:50 for a tragic tale.

Photo by calums

Owen played violin for Titus Andronicus at their show in Toronto.

Interview: "The Gladiator"

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 03:09:24 -0500

Les Mouches and Brian Eno
Photo by Owen Pallett

Ola Vikås interviewed Owen Pallett for the Norwegian music site GAFFA in September and has kindly provided us with a full translation. Owen talked about his experience playing at a metal festival, inspiration from Brian Eno and John Darnielle, as well as how he deals with his mental problems in life and on In Conflict. The title of the interview is taken from this quote by Owen: "In many ways, I see myself as a gladiator, that is probably the best image. I stand with my violin and fight a thousand drunk audiences."

Pekka Kuusisto / DM Stith / Bootlegs

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:57:45 -0500

In a video for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Owen Pallett and Pekka Kuusisto discuss Owen's violin concerto and other music topics. To start off, Owen completely misinterprets the violinist's style of interpretation.

DM Stith blogs his thanks to Owen for organizing and directing the string session for his upcoming album.

There have been two bootlegs uploaded this year that I am aware of. The first is the Transcendental Youth show by the Mountain Goats with Anonymous 4 and Owen Pallett at the Barbican, when Owen filled in for Susan Hellauer of Anonymous 4 and also played violin on two songs. The second is from the Myer Horowitz Theatre in Edmonton on October 26, 2010.

On the topic of Owen's arrangements of Transcendental Youth songs, John Darnielle told Beats Per Minute, "When you write a song, it's this sort of… it's kind of like finger painting. It's a lot more intentional than that, but when you're done writing a song—for me, anyway, because this is probably not true for everybody—just because you're the guy who wrote it doesn't mean you really understand everything that's going on in it. And I had this idea that if we played them live as a band and I did them in settings that Owen had written them in and so forth, I'd get to know more about them when it came time to record them. I'd have different views of them. Because a song is a pretty loose text. You know this from covering songs. Songs have many ways of being. So I sort of covered my own songs before recording them, so that I could see where they lived and where their hidden parts are."

Album title / Taylor Swift / Robbie Williams / Exclaim! show / Unofficial music videos

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 06:40:17 -0500

Photo by allisplural.ca

The title of Owen Pallett's new album is In Conflict. He tweets that it is "long and non-fictional".

Owen arranged and conducted strings for Taylor Swift's song "The Last Time" (featuring Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol) on her recent album Red. The Los Angeles Times used this fact to make a dubious connection between Taylor Swift and Arcade Fire and Fucked Up.

Owen also arranged and conducted strings for Take the Crown by Robbie Williams, on the lead single "Candy", the second single "Different", and the song "Into the Silence".

Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus told MTV Hive, "We met Owen Pallett at a festival that we both played at, found out he was a fan of the band. He’s pretty much the best violinist going in the indie rock game, so we figured that he would be a great guy to get involved, and happily he was glad to do it. And he’s a really nice fellow, obviously really talented." #localbusinessforever

Owen will be curating another show for Exclaim!, this time in Toronto and featuring Doom Squad, THOMAS, and Alex Lukashevsky with Felicity Williams and Daniela Gesundheit.

"Honor" by Claire Kurylowski is a music video homage to the film Last Year at Marienbad, set to "The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead (Many Ives Version)".

"A Man with No Ankles" by Mélanie Bérubé is a music video about a boy who doesn't want to grow up.

Everything Is New charity / Slim Twig arrangements / Joni Mitchell cover / Elvis Costello cover

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 22:12:32 -0400

Everything Is New is a charity project for and featuring Southeast Indian children rescued from destitution. Many artists (including Owen Pallett) and children have sung for an album called Sun Choir. Funds are being raised for the mastering process on Indiegogo in order to complete the project.

Indie rock musician Slim Twig's second album of 2012, titled A Hound at the Hem, has strings arranged by Owen Pallett and performed by the St. Kitts String Quartet. Listen to the first track on Bandcamp.

Devon Record Club listened to Heartland and as part of the discussion, Owen wrote in some many of his thoughts and intentions behind the concept and the arrangements.

Finally, here are some videos from the past week. Owen Pallett and Doveman cover "Passion Play (When All the Slaves Are Free)" by Joni Mitchell:

Owen Pallett and Doveman cover "Shipbuilding" by Elvis Costello:

West My Friend and the Kovich String Quartet cover "The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead":

New songs

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 02:31:27 -0400

Photo by Ann & Peter Macdonald

Owen has posted about some of the songs that will be on his 2013 album. He mentions 11 new songs: 8 with the band and 3 solo. 5 of them have been played live so far. There will be an orchestra. I've created a page for the new album with more details.

The film Owen wrote the score for, originally planned for this year, has been delayed.