Owen Pallett -- In Conflict

Heartland is an all-time favourite for me. So far, I have not really been able to connect with this in the same way, as far as my personal taste goes. I don't dislike it by any stretch: hooks get in my head; the skills are undeniable. Maybe it's just a matter of time. The three songs that were released ahead of time are still my favourites.

Very hard to compare them as I've listened to Heartland a lot since it came out and have only played In Conflict maybe five times now. My first impressions are there is nothing on In Conflict that I love as much as Lewis Takes Off His Shirt and Tryst With Mephistopheles but overall it's more consistently enjoyable album. Love that he's totally fulfilling all that promise that he showed on the Final Fantasy albums. They're both really good albums but what he's done since has been such a huge leap in, well everything really.

Very excited that he's coming to Minnesota in September. Haven't seen him since around He Poos Clouds.

My first impressions are there is nothing on In Conflict that I love as much as Lewis Takes Off His Shirt and Tryst With Mephistopheles but overall it's more consistently enjoyable album.

Those are the exact two songs that will probably keep Heartland firmly entrenched as my favourite Owen Pallett album. But if enough of In Conflict ends up growing on me to the degree that "The Riverbed" has...

Song for five and six is what's up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr_SbrFIuKA

my feeling as well

it's def in my top ten
this album has me listening to he poos clouds again (which is prob still my fave full length, dunno if that's nostalgia or what but there i am)

really loving this still

kinda wish the first album wasn't titled "he poos clouds" i woulda checked it earlier

i seem to recall his comment on that was that it was meant to be a compliment, like "she's so sweet, she shits whipped cream" but yeah, we've all gotten older and wiser

p sure i only checked out the first album because of the title

p sure this was the first album
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/67368688/Has+A+Good+Home+CA+HAGH.jpg

Yeah, I still really like "This Is the Dream of Win and Reg" and "That's When the Audience Died".

i love the floaty chorus of "the secret seven". and even though i think he's probably singing "watching kids turn into lovers/believers", i hold out hope that it's actually lovers/beliebers

Has a Home is all about An Arrow in the Side of Final Fantasy and The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead for me.

i think seeing final fantasy back in 2005 was what made me want to buy a loop pedal. it took me like eight years to actually get around to it.

i tried to be the sole antagonist in thread before but i can't keep it up, this album is an astonishing achievement. structurally maybe not too different from what he'd done before (and that i have no complaints about) but something about the knotting together of synths and acoustic instruments works unlike really anything else i can think of. at points it sounds like there's a modelling of the synths on the tendencies of stringed instruments, and a modelling of the stringed instruments on the tendencies of synths, and that slightly disorienting combination of sounds wheeling around each other is just perfect.

I dunno; maybe I'll be the lone dissenter. Like, I recognise this album as an astonishing achievement. But I've listened to it twice, and I don't know if I can listen to it again, because it makes me bawl like a baby every time I put it on. It's like it's too much, emotionally, and I'm too raw for this. Maybe I need to put it away for a year and come back to it when I'm in a better place emotionally, and just listen to meaningless shiny-metal-box music until then. It's an amazing album, yes, but when every single song feels like a dart aimed directly at your most vulnerable part, it can be difficult to listen to. This is probably my failing, not the album's. There's a time for catharsis and emotional vulnerability, and a time for just holding it together. I don't know that I can do this right now.

sounds like compliments of the highest order to me! :-)

i mean, if it wasn't so short it would be an emotionally difficult listen for even the most resilient person. listening to it the number of times i have, i've had to take a break cos much as it improves as a listening experience on consecutive goes, so too do the emotions get magnified and after a while i started feeling a bit traumatised.

I've listened maybe four times; nowhere near enough to take everything in yet, which is kind of how Heartland worked, too - I found myself just listening and listening over and over again, because it was musically and aesthetically just so NICE to listen to, before the emotional impact really hit home.

People get catharsis in different ways, I suppose; but this (with some exceptions; The Riverbed, perhaps) doesn't seem to have the same catharsis through emotional desperation of the Embrace record, or catharsis through voodoo repetition like the Swans record. Owen's music strokes my emotions rather than squeezing them or battering them.

One thing I wish he'd do is release more records, more often! He's SO GOOD AT MUSIC! It feels nuts that there've been 4 years each from HPC to H and from H to IC.

OP OTM

Here's my review of this record: http://thequietus.com/articles/15386-owen-pallett-favourite-albums I can honestly say I've never felt so humbled in reviewing a record as nothing I could write about it would do it fair justice. I've been in a kind of agonised turmoil since submitting my final draft a few days ago, especially in the light of several more plays and having read other people's reactions (tend to try and avoid reading others' opinions before writing, so it's interesting to hear these takes). Anyway, all in all, it's likely to be among my very favourite albums out this year.

oops, wrong link. Here it is: http://thequietus.com/articles/15353-owen-pallett-in-conflict-review

Owen's music strokes my emotions rather than squeezing them or battering them.

Maybe I need to listen some more, but I feel like the real lone dissenter here not wowed by his synthpop or his vocal style (thus I haven't really even paid much close attention to the lyrics). Maybe it's a musical thing and I should stick with Meshell Ndegeocello, Mel Waiters, Afropop and other stuff I like. But there is stuff in this genre I like more.

i'd bet money that a song off this album ends up playing over and episode of Looking's closing credits next season

or John Grant-Hercules & Love Affair

john grant was on S1!

but now he's got even funkier beats!

The production and arrangements on this are off the hook, it reminds me a bit of Homogenic-era Bjork the way the electronic and orchestral elements meld together.

After the first couple of listens... I wish I liked his voice more, because I struggle with his delivery quite a lot and that prevents me from really loving this.

OK, wow, the CD sounds MUCH better to me than the stream I was listening to previously. I'm hearing much more sonic detail. Tracks that I didn't notice before such as "Chorale" and "Sky Behind the Flag" are really standing out now.

i like this guy's writing a little bit. don't know his music. is he a corny indie fuxor? the arcade fire associations give me pause; i have no time for that kind of music.

:D

fyi i can't rly stomach the arcade fire (no offence goon tie) but this album is fucking incredible music

does brian eno's music sound like coldplay?

what is the sound of one hand clapping if you add tons of reverb?

it is 'the sound of one hand clapping' played on Todd Glass' home stereo

that was a pretty lame reference. anyway, my point is that it doesn't sound like arcade fire, and it is worth checking out if a worry of corny indie fuxorness is keeping you away.

thanks! will do!

but be warned, i'm coming back for you if it sounds anything like arcade fire. may god have mercy on your soul.

:-o

I read all this a couple days ago and felt emotionally overwhelmed, I was tipsy and surfing and I clicked it open and cried a bunch, thank you guys.

You all know what my day job is, and I am finding it increasingly more difficult to participate in occupational artistic activity that negates my own. At the very least on a time-scheduling level, but sometimes, it feels, on a deeper ideological and political level.

But I think you can see, having listened to this album, why I took so many jobbing gigs this year... I didn't think such a blazingly queer (and emotionally direct) record was gonna get my coal this time around. Hopefully I can make it work this fall, keep this "career" sustainable. The solo stuff has felt more rewarding than ever before, on an artistic level, and I thank y'all for your votes of confidence, with both your kind words and your engaged criticism.

I wish I could press a 'like' button on ILX posts.

haha, i was going to say exactly that.

For damn sure!

goony, I dunno if i agree with you on the "blazingly queer" stuff honestly... a lot of the emotional heart of this resonates deeply in the seat of my little cis hetero brain. it's been a real keeper and in heavy rotation still; it's always exciting when you find something that keeps opening up and giving listen after listen. congratulations. it's a real lasting accomplishment methinks.

(and m@tt otm about "a warmer New Puritans")

specific = universal = specific

http://devonrecordclub.com/2014/06/14/owen-pallett-in-conflict-round-68-nicks-choice/

"The way “The Riverbed” sets the tension level at ‘breaking point’ from the moment it begins and somehow manages to maintain that remarkable pitch throughout its entire length without shattering into a billion pieces or exploding into bombast"

otm

the title track has my favourite bass line of the year, so tight with the drums.

I picked up He Poos Clouds a few years ago and probably wasn't in the right place to get it - it struck me as impressive and well-conceived but not something to go back to. All the chatter on this thread made me try HPC once more, and now I keep going back to it. I listened to In Conflict for the first time last night - even more ambitious, wider palette of sound, I already think I will like it more than HPC. "The Riverbed" made the biggest impact on me on first listen.