Owen Pallett - Heartland

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"And from my ginger chest, there
came the sound of thunder"

Blasting this tonight in honor of its anniversary. An album so unique and with a truly transformative power I did not think I'd come across after my 30s any more. Shame the "life altering" cliche, but alter my life, it did. Up yours.

<3 :) thank you guys

starting this thread prob in my top 5 moments on ilx.

My album of the decade no contest (and maybe song of the decade too for "The Great Elsewhere").

i remember this being the first record i bought after deciding i'd never buy a CD again!

the synth of lewis takes off his shirt is still one of my favourite musical things ever

new OP album announced soon surely?

It’s a wonderful record, Owen.

I need to listen to this record again asap. The problem with having a mental list of albums you love is that the list keeps getting longer and longer, so it's nice to be reminded of a record you love that you haven't listened to lately, for no particularly good reason!

idk if this was really "public knowledge", but there was a re-issue of this album back in 2014 or so that included a number of bonus tracks. I know the "Deluxe Edition" is available on the iTunes store (and on CD format); I don't know about streaming services, because I don't use them. (I do use Tidal but I think it's bad luck to search for your own music on streaming services for some reason.)

The "Deluxe Edition" includes an instrumental b-side from the "Lewis Takes Action" single ("A Watery Day"), and then the entirety of the "Export EP". "Export" was a bit of a weird thing. I originally had this idea that I might record re-imagined versions of Heartland's songs that were stripped down and sung by other singers. I recorded beds for them, and started soliciting certain friends of mine to sing them. The wrangling process was more than I'd bargained for, and I got impatient. Fall 2010 was a frustrating bit of time for me. My guitarist (the brilliant Thom Gill) abruptly left, which was for the best (on a global level, he's a genius and should be doing his own thing). I had been in talks with new management, which made me optimistic for 'what would happen in the 2010s', and those talks abruptly fell through. There was some other stuff going on at the time, I can't remember what.

At the time, I'd only experienced one episode of adult depression (Spring 2007)-- funny to think about it now that depression/anxiety have become such a defining feature of my personality/existence. But in December 2010 I fell into a depression. I began cobbling together some unreleased stuff, including the instrumentals to this "Heartland reimagined" EP, and other fragments of things, to put together what would become the "Export EP". Prior to a set I played in Osaka, my last set of the year, I started sobbing desperately in front of my friend who worked at P-Vine. The year had been overwhelming and I was just exhausted. That night, in a daze, I uploaded "Export EP" to Soundcloud instead of bothering to consult anybody about a proper release for it. It was ignored. (The depression lifted a few days later and I had a really happy and healthy few years; 2011 especially was a really great one.)

Anyway you might be interested to try and track down the deluxe edition of Heartland for that EP. The best track on it is a really fucking good version of "The Great Elsewhere" from that Heartland Reimagined thing. Shara Nova (fka Shara Worden aka My Brightest Diamond) was the first and only person I solicited to record their vocals, and she... absolutely slayed it. The version has Shahzad Ismaily on drums and Thom Gill on guitar, I'm playing Rhodes, and three NYC string player luminaries (Rob Moose violin, Nadia Sirota viola, Clarice Jensen cello). Here it is if you're interested. The version began as a joke that Thom and I used to play at sound check but we decided it was actually amazing and recorded it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuQKPjaP08

I saw the songs from this album live every night for the better part of a month and "lewis takes off his shirt" just fuckin killed me every time

Holy shit, she did slay it. That was awesome.

shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

i have always loved loved loved that Export Elsewhere

<3 that version of TGE (which I think I first heard on saidthegramophone!).

Yeah it's superb.

Love Shara's cover sooooo much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7WxTP3ger8

this performance <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

(I do use Tidal but I think it's bad luck to search for your own music on streaming services for some reason.)

this is a mood

That performance in the rain is genuinely one of my favourite things on the internet.

really enjoyed the sound track to Recorder; it's a shame that's not readily available anywhere.... that i know of?

"Recorder"'s OST is not gonna be released. It works really well in the context of the movie, but not-so-much on its own. (The same is true for the score I did for the HBO doc "Suited"). I do have four soundtracks mastered and ready for release-- Anton Corbijn's "Life", M Blash's "The Wait", Shannon Walsh's "Illusions Of Control" and Matt Wolf's newer doc "Spaceship Earth"-- the last of which is 80 minutes of orchestral tootling that is a hybrid of Michael Nyman and Aaron Copland and is something I'm really proud of. Variety reviewed the film and said the score was "tremendous" :)

I've got the Final Fantasy-era material all re-mastered and it sounds insanely good, we're literally just waiting on my label to upload it to DSPs. The new album has a release date but I can't announce it yet-- I'm not anticipating that Covid is gonna push it back but I can't be sure sure.

that's a lot of great news!!

Great news in the midst of so much bad news.

Whoa that’s fantastic fgti!

Great to hear fgti!

yay, owen - excited on all fronts and hope you are weathering this bad weather as well as could be hoped.

Cool stuff, fgti!

nice to have some nice news

Yeah this is one of few bright bits of news this week. Can't wait for the next album

Can't wait! I was the sound recordist for HBO's Suited - loved that you came onboard for it and the score was great. Excited to catch some of these other films you did.

Man, that was such a weird project, Suited. You know I scored the entire film based on a slow-core temp score? The temp score was like... Low and Loscil and stuff. Got the whole thing approved by the director? That score was REALLY beautiful. Then, on the last day of recording that score (which was also the next-to-last project recorded at Magic Shop in NYC before it closed-- that's where Bowie made The Next Day and Black Star), the super-famous producer of that film, god bless her, called the director with her feedback on the temp score: "why does this sound like a score for a documentary about cancer survivors? I want it to sound fun! like Arcade Fire! or like.. fun. (the band)" I ended up having to redo the entire score as indie pap (I say this with affection), using pretty much entirely in-the-box Logic instruments-- I had already spent the budget on the recording sessions and had no other choice. Def my worst score, ha! Good doc though.

Amazing. I'm glad to hear the director approved, he and I were close before and thru shooting. We were, together, invited to one of the subjects' bachelor parties, a night of laser tag with his family. Any chance the original will ever see the light of day?

Oooh that's amazing! All the subjects seemed really cool, I wanted to hang out with the cellist especially. And no to the original score appearing at any time... there was one cue that had a melody I liked so much that I used it for a new song, but aside from that, it's on the rocks.

Breaking from my Fetch the Bolt Cutters repetitions to play the remastered Has a Good Home, which is now up on streaming services under Owen's name :)

What a day for tunes. Fiona, Owen remaster, new Mountain Goats project on streaming services too.

oh i missed the release date news upthread, amazing!

He Poos Clouds will be up today, also :) apparently it just takes a bit of time

today is so fuckin good.

Remasters not on Apple Music?

With reissues (as opposed to new releases) they're kind of lower priority and so every DSP does their own thing. They're not up on Tidal yet either (my DSP of choice). I'm not even posting on socials about anything until everything is live

Both reissues are great, new life to familiar music.

I have no idea what remastering is from a technical perspective but I *can* say the songs hit different (in a great way).

They're on Apple Music now. Listening to Has a Good Home and I can definitely here more clarity on (for example) "Furniture" and "The CN Tower Belongs To the Dead," and I'm not the type to typically notice such things unless the upgrading is super dramatic.

man, it's been forever since i listened to "he poos clouds"
i remember it being mailed to me and thinking it was a TERRIBLE name and then i fell in love with the album
still feeling the same 15 years later reallyl!

Thought Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project was excellent, film and soundtrack both. I've never felt better about my life as a hoarder.

I'd never heard Has A Good Home before

SPOILER: it's great

<3 thanks DJP

btw, I scored this and it's coming out May 8

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/neon-spaceship-earth-release-coronavirus-1234585849/

coooooool was already on my must watch list!

remastered Has A Good Home sounds so goooood. <3

can't wait for Island!

island out tonight !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://www.instagram.com/p/CAdyxJcA8XE/

fair play, gatecrashing the 1975 love-in like this

https://music.apple.com/jp/album/island/1509744953

oo!

WHAT