Owen Pallett -- In Conflict

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.

His solo music hasn't come across my radar since undergrad, when I heard "This Is the Dream of Win and Regine". I love that song for its chorus-less journey through some very catchy phrases and great musical ideas. But the journey has some repetition, and the electronic stuff throughout tends to give the song one feel (which isn't a bad thing, I love the song). In the new album, all of these phrases and ideas seem to evolve throughout each song in a very beautiful way. The slight changes made to the melody or timing of repeated phrases are so catchy and engaging. The synth sounds and arrangements are also more varied and effective. I find myself repeating the first 4 tracks over and over just because so much is already in there.

You stand in a city
That you don't know anymore

Gets me every time

oh hey, i keep meaning to ask if an owen has ever read the obscure cities because i think of those books every time i hear that line
http://www.theobscurecities.com/home/

it's fun to listen to the live youtubes posted on the fansite because the arrangements are necessarily different. before one of the 'song for five and six' versions, he mentions that this album is not so 'loopy'. I guess that's all I meant with my post. it's not so loopy, and I really like that.

It has taken me quite some time to fully take in the multi-dimensional immensity that is this album. I shied away from reading this thread, too, knowing I would eventually come by here to share my thoughts, regardless. 'In Conflict', I feel, is a near perfect* album, a rare, all-encompassing monolith that is there with me always, looking at me, reflecting on me.

I've seen some people up here try to compare it to Heartland. Whether In Conflict ranks higher or lower. I did this at first, but it is such a futile attempt, for they truly are apples and oranges. Where Heartland, in all its beautiful glory, is a mythical tale, something to gaze at in amazement, yet from afar, as something outside of both the narrator and the creator, ’In Conflict’ is almost its diametrical opposite. It is so close, so personal, too much at times. And that is so very tricky, which is why it's even more amazing that Owen pulls it off. Narrates you into this highly personal world and makes you feel at home, too.

There is no denying that some of ’In Conflict’'s themes especially hit home so hard because I find myself dabbling with similar situations and questions, phase of life-wise. Being around the same age helps, too. I wouldn't dare call the tales of ’In Conflict’ autobiographical (as pointed out by Owen in an interview I read, and I understand why), but highly personal? Hell yes. And relatable. Not just in a ’I can see that’ kind of way, but in an ’omg yes - *cries*' kind of way.

The children theme hits home hard. I know not of another piece of music that goes through desire, grief and acceptance as emphatic and uplifting as the opener on this album.
I keep thinking of Moloch, the god of propitiatory child sacrifice, too. Referring to sacrificing something of the highest known value - a child (or ’children’), yet being offered a supreme sense of solace and acceptance for that.

I suppose that is it: hope. There is so much hope on this album, such gracious, relentless kindness, that it takes you a while to realize it really is this sincere and bare, that you aren't being fooled. The display of intimacy and honesty is just immense.

I’ll refrain from singling out songs, specific melodies, or quotes; there are so many that already are latched onto my soul for either very important reasons or no reason at all. As a whole though, this album is everything I could wish for and so much more. Compared to Heartland, it is so much more mature because it is so much more bare, inescapably honest. Both in sound, composition and lyrical themes.

I could not wish for a more beautiful new Owen Pallett album. Owen, if you are reading this, thank you so, so much. Your new album hasn't changed my life; rather has it made a whole lot of things more clear and more bearable and injected with a before severely lacking amount of hope and kindness, and done in such an immensely beautiful way, with such amazingly beautiful music. It's just two stupid words, but believe: thank you. This album has conquered my heart in so many ways already, and it's not nearly done conquering more of me.

* there is one single thing that bugs the shit out of me: those two dull chord punches at the very end, I just do not get them! For someone who so meticulously composes his music, this can't be an incident, it is planned. Yet they throw me off every single time, it feel so off, so confusing. If confusion was intended, I will gladly accept that: I have no problem being thrown off my balance beam for the sake of a shake up or confusion. But please let it not be dreaded randomness.

do all formats end that way, even though they have different closing tracks? I'd guess that it wasn't random.

Xpost, beautiful post LBI

Yeah that's a great post that sums up many of my feelings about the album so far, LBI. There's not just little phrases that strike me as I can relate (I think I'm close to Owen's age/circumstances), but little details in the instrumentation or Owen's delivery that somehow hit those same feelings. The musical version of relating to something, maybe. Almost through my third listen now and I just want to keep listening. Shame Owen's not coming to my city anytime soon because I am very curious how these songs translate to the stage.