Just prior to the 2014 Academy Awards, Opening Ceremony sat down with the Canadian composer Owen Pallett to learn more about his Oscar-nominated work on Spike Jonze's movie, her. Though the artist didn't take home the award for Best Original Score that night, he'll be back in the public eye on May 27, with the release of In Conflict. His fourth album to date, In Conflict is a dreamy collection of narratives, discussing depression, substance abuse, and gender issues, in tracks backed by orchestral layering, Brian Eno's drones, and Owen's signature violin loops. In light of his forthcoming release and his two tour dates in New York this week, we caught up with the musician via phone.
My name is _____ and my music sounds like ______.
My name is Owen Pallett and my music sounds like—wow. I don't know, I've never been asked that before.
If your most recent album were the soundtrack to a film, what would it be and why?
It'd be Persona, the Ingmar Bergman movie. It's about a dual state of being—the "we" versus the "me."
Whose style did you admire as a teenager?
This is so embarrassing, but Beck's. It was hard for me to do a proper Souxsie, but Beck was really easy. When I was 15, I clipped out a couple photos I had seen in the newspaper and dressed like that for about two years. My mom hated the way I dressed; I came home one day to find out that she'd thrown out all those clothes and told me I had to get new ones and start dressing better.
How would you describe your style now?
Nico Muhly and I shop the same designers, but he goes for the robes and capes and describes his style as "Ringwraith," like Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, whereas I think of myself as the more scholarly version of that. Dark librarian.
What's the weirdest thing a fan has given you?
I don't know about weirdest, but one of the coolest things was a thesis paper that they wrote on Heartland. It was brilliant and beautiful to read, and it picked up on a lot of stuff that I unconsciously knew I had done, but didn't consciously know. I think it was a Musicology paper and to have so much of my inner songwriting voice dissected was amazing; it was like getting a doctor's report or a biopsy.
Was it pretty spot-on?
I would have given him an A+.
How would you dissect your evolution between Heartland and In Conflict?
The big change between the two happened when I heard the Dan Deacon remix of "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt." It was much more drum-oriented—just drums, drums, drums propelling the song. I love drums, but I'd never featured them too heavily in my records for reasons that are very complicated, but I just kind of find that they're a way of sedating your recording. But in Heartland, I noticed that the drums were very restrained because the songs weren't written for the drums, but for violin and voice. So, for In Conflict, I wanted the rhythm section to be as much a part of the songs as my voice and violin.
I always nervous about forming a band, because I didn't know what I would do—my shows are just me playing a violin and looping it. Like, the drummer's going to play along to my limping loops? But, then when we started doing it, it made it sound like the loops were coming alive.
What was the inspiration behind your new album's lyrics? I read that it was about approaching "insanity" (emphasis on the scare quotes)
My name is _____ and my music sounds like ______.
My name is Owen Pallett and my music sounds like—wow. I don't know, I've never been asked that before.
If your most recent album were the soundtrack to a film, what would it be and why?
It'd be Persona, the Ingmar Bergman movie. It's about a dual state of being—the "we" versus the "me."
Whose style did you admire as a teenager?
This is so embarrassing, but Beck's. It was hard for me to do a proper Souxsie, but Beck was really easy. When I was 15, I clipped out a couple photos I had seen in the newspaper and dressed like that for about two years. My mom hated the way I dressed; I came home one day to find out that she'd thrown out all those clothes and told me I had to get new ones and start dressing better.
How would you describe your style now?
Nico Muhly and I shop the same designers, but he goes for the robes and capes and describes his style as "Ringwraith," like Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, whereas I think of myself as the more scholarly version of that. Dark librarian.
What's the weirdest thing a fan has given you?
I don't know about weirdest, but one of the coolest things was a thesis paper that they wrote on Heartland. It was brilliant and beautiful to read, and it picked up on a lot of stuff that I unconsciously knew I had done, but didn't consciously know. I think it was a Musicology paper and to have so much of my inner songwriting voice dissected was amazing; it was like getting a doctor's report or a biopsy.
Was it pretty spot-on?
I would have given him an A+.
How would you dissect your evolution between Heartland and In Conflict?
The big change between the two happened when I heard the Dan Deacon remix of "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt." It was much more drum-oriented—just drums, drums, drums propelling the song. I love drums, but I'd never featured them too heavily in my records for reasons that are very complicated, but I just kind of find that they're a way of sedating your recording. But in Heartland, I noticed that the drums were very restrained because the songs weren't written for the drums, but for violin and voice. So, for In Conflict, I wanted the rhythm section to be as much a part of the songs as my voice and violin.
I always nervous about forming a band, because I didn't know what I would do—my shows are just me playing a violin and looping it. Like, the drummer's going to play along to my limping loops? But, then when we started doing it, it made it sound like the loops were coming alive.
What was the inspiration behind your new album's lyrics? I read that it was about approaching "insanity" (emphasis on the scare quotes)