Owen Pallett fansite

Dec 13, 2012 New album 75% done

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.

Nov 26, 2012 Interview: "The Gladiator"

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."

Nov 18, 2012 Pekka Kuusisto / DM Stith / Bootlegs

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."

Nov 14, 2012 Album title / Taylor Swift / Robbie Williams / Exclaim! show / Unofficial music videos

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.

Oct 14, 2012 Everything Is New charity / Slim Twig arrangements / Joni Mitchell cover / Elvis Costello cover

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":

Sep 17, 2012 New songs

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.

Aug 10, 2012 Titus Andronicus / Arthur Russell / Kishi Bashi

Photo by Jason Persse

In April/May, Owen played violin for Titus Andronicus's new album Local Business, to be released on October 23. It will continue the band's theme that "the inherent meaninglessness of life in an absurd universe gives the individual power to create their own values and their own morality."

Nico Muhly and Owen Pallett will collaborate on an interpretation for the Arthur Russell tribute album This Is How We Walk on the Moon. Familiar names among the other contributing musicians include Sam Amidon, Sandro Perri, and Ólöf Arnalds. Production company Red Hot is seeking your support on Kickstarter.

Photo by Elaine Marschik

In an interview with Riverfront Times, Kishi Bashi discusses what Owen Pallett fans said about him on the SHZine forum, and how he met Owen because of that.

Jul 28, 2012 Steve Kado composition / Lindstrøm remix…

Steve Kado has released a 47-minute track titled "2003", performed with Isla Craig, Shahin Etemadzadeh, Mani Mazinani, Charlie Murray, Owen Pallett, Matias Rozenberg and Val Uher.

Description: "A scored composition for an indeterminate number of musicians playing on every beat for the same amount of time. Based heavily on Terry Riley and the Wipers."

Stream and download at Steve Kado's Bandcamp.

Dance producer Lindstrøm will release a 12" single containing a remix of his track "No Release" by Owen Pallett featuring Steve Kado.

Description: "The Owen Pallett remix is a Prins Thomas favourite and has been played a lot by him already."

It can be pre-ordered from a number of stores including Piccadilly Records and Norman Records.

For music magazine Exclaim!'s 20th anniversary, Owen Pallett and Change of Heart will be curating a show in Hamilton featuring Born Ruffians, Hollerado, Mystery Machine, Rococode, Simply Saucer, B.A. Johnston, Eamon McGrath, and C.A. Smith.

John Darnielle has written more about the upcoming Mountain Goats album Transcendental Youth.

"The Songsmith's Heartland" comic has reached its finale.

On May 26, Owen played piano and violin for Ólöf Arnalds and Hauschka during their sets respectively. He was backed by Lee-Quartett for over half of his own songs. Ólöf sang "This Lamb Sells Condos" and "The Pooka Sings". There's also a video of "The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead" as well as photos from the show.

Listen to a mashup by Tor of "The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead" and Q-Tip's "Work It Out".

Apr 21, 2012 New song / Smugglers Way / I'm (Not) Afraid of Japan

Last night, after joining Jim Guthrie for a song on violin (which was arranged by Owen Pallett back in 2003), Owen debuted a new song with Rob Gordon and Matt Smith. Here's a description of the song, which, as expected, is pretty different from previous styles. From this show, there's also an audio recording of "Tryst with Mephistopheles" at Mechanical Forest Sound.

The flexi zine Smugglers Way by Domino Records, released today on Record Store Day, contains a page of sheet music by Owen. Titled "In Xs", it's an arranged mashup of "In C" by Terry Riley and "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS.

Digital Convenience has photos of Owen Pallett, Perfume Genius, Bradford Cox, and others in Japan from February.

Progressive Progessions wrote a musical analysis of “Took You Two Years to Win My Heart”.

Apr 12, 2012 Violin Concerto reviews / Anonymous 4 recording / Linkin Park

Reviews of the March 16 concert with Nico Muhly: The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, musicOMH, Bachtrack, Thumped.


Photo by David Andrako

NPR posted an 89-minute recording of the March 24 concert by The Mountain Goats and Anonymous 4 (new Mountain Goats songs arranged by Owen Pallett).

Owen filled in for a member of Anonymous 4 on April 2. Reviews: Consequence of Sound, I Care if You Listen.

Owen arranged strings for the song "I'll Be Gone" on the upcoming Linkin Park album. Singer Chester Bennington told Spin, "He's incredible. You send him notes and he's immediately like, 'I just sent you the track. Like, five minutes ago. It's done.'"

Feb 3, 2012 The Songsmith's Heartland (comic)

"The Songsmith's Heartland" is a webcomic illustrated by Nick Thornborrow, based on the album "Heartland" by Owen Pallett. A young farmer named Lewis lives a restless existence, until he's called upon by The Songsmith to become the hero of Heartland. All too eager to fulfill his destiny, Lewis takes up the sword, slaying monsters and spreading the word of The Songsmith. But as Lewis becomes the object of The Songsmith's infatuation, he is unable to ignore the fact that he's just a character in The Songsmith's narrative. Heartland and the entire world of Spectrum stand in balance as the unhinged warrior confronts the eccentric artist who created him.

A new page will be published every Monday and Friday, starting February 6. Subscribe!

Feb 2, 2012 Violin Concerto

Owen Pallett's violin concerto is now co-commissioned by the Barbican Centre and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, with dates on March 16, 2012 and March 7, 2013 respectively. The concerto is "inspired by the solo violin music of Bach." Pekka Kuusisto will be the soloist.

Jan 27, 2012 New photos / Snow Patrol / animal tweets

Michael Silverman has uploaded a Flickr photoset of a songwriters workshop with Worden/Pallett/Muhly/Dessner at Stanford. David Lang explained why he picked these four musicians for his latest work.

Snow Patrol did a track-by-track commentary on their new album with arrangements by Owen Pallett.

There's a novelty Tumblr called Animals Tweeting as Owen Pallett... perfect timing for Owen's new snowshoe hare.

Jan 4, 2012 Guthrie / tattoo / Bieber

Kotaku has named Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (by Jim Guthrie) the best game music of 2011. Owen Pallett played violin for the menu piece "The Cloud".

k215 on Tumblr has gotten a Heartland tattoo over his heart:



NOW Magazine asked Owen about Justin Bieber: "No adult male singer should be expected to hit a high E-flat, that's castrato territory. Overall he's doing great, considering his voice is probably so fucked right now. He's gonna have a beautiful high tenor in a year or so."