a mix for autumn

Taxi, Taxi! - Belle
Erik Levander - Sekund
Samamidon - Saro
The Last Dinosaur - Gusts of Wind Blowing in Different Directions
Arcade Fire - Accidents
Blue Roses - I Am Leaving
Auld Lang Syne - Where My Fortune Lies

Some of my favourite songs for my favourite season. 'Gusts of Wind...' is taken from The Last Dinosaur's debut, which I am enjoying at the moment, and on which I have more to say. 'I Am Leaving' has also not been posted before, and it is gorgeous, and windy, and serene.
Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Final Fantasy Interview

{This interview originally appeared on Analogue}


Final Fantasy - E is for Estranged (live, FM4 Session)

Final Fantasy's long awaited third record was finally announced last month, to shouts of joy and amused interest. It's something of a concept album, based on a world where the sole deity is the violinist, singer and loop-pedal genius himself, and it does, admittedly, sound rather odd. Yet for Owen Pallett, a man who named his music project after one of the nerdiest of video games, such imaginative underpinnings might not be too out of character.
More interesting, perhaps, is the scale of the record. Unlike his hastily put-together debut, Has A Good Home, or its follow-up, the gloriously-titled He Poos Clouds, Heartland is a more ambitious endeavor. I wanted to know about Spectrum, the fictitious setting for these songs, and how he ended up there. Thankfully, Owen is the obliging type, and was ready to answer various questions on the album, his literary pursuits, and his work elsewhere.

Okay. Some of these questions are a bit nerdy.
No sweat, Shane. I prefer the nerdy questions to ones about "classical background", those ones really get on my tits.

You've been a bit ill lately - how are you doing now?
As of this morning, I am feeling 100% better, which is a relief. Saturday night, I literally thought I was dying. I lay on the floor of the tub, with boiling hot water pouring out of the shower head, shivering and crying. My advice to you: B supplements. Don't stop taking them, for any reason.

Heartland has been a while in the making. Now that it's finished, was it what you wanted?
Hard to say, really. I had a goal of creating a turgid, non-wimpy, non-blasty orchestral record, something really full of blood and guts. Not ten horns a-blazing nine harps a-swelling eight timpani pounding. Just dense and mechanical, as if a piece of orchestral music could sit next to a Gang Of Four song. And I think I killed it, in that regard. Like, I got it right.

But it did take way more out of me than I thought it should. I realized--too late--that with the orchestral albums I love, typically, the exec. producer, producer, songwriter, singer, arranger, conductor, engineer, mixer and so forth, they're all different people. I really should've hired some interns, cause this record... well, it took a lot out of me.

The new material references characters from the EP like Blue Imelda and No-Face - What can you tell us about their backgrounds? What's Lewis' story?
I'd rather just let the album speak for itself. I listened to Ziggy Stardust and Outside hundreds of times, trying to connect the dots, unlock the secrets. Those songs hit pretty hard, but the concept part never really panned out for me.

Where did you get the idea from, of making an album of a place where you are the deity? Did Flann O'Brien play a role in it?
Actually, I got the idea from A Lover's Discourse, of all places. That book is all about interpreting Barthes' passions, and how the signifiers of a courtship can affect them. I started thinking about what role the "other" played in those dialogues, how she felt, what her interpretation might be. Barthes' essay The Death Of The Author figured into it as well.

Some of the new songs seem a little different from those of He Poos Clouds - when listening to 'Lewis Takes Action' or 'The Great Elsewhere', I'm partly reminded of Destroyer's Your Blues... Did you feel any particular influences while you were writing?
Your Blues was 100% the inspiration for He Poos Clouds. That record made me feel like I could sing anything, do whatever, and it would be fine. Heartland, though, I don't know. None of the songs on the record were inspired by other people's songs. I did listen to the a cappella tracks of Pet Sounds a bunch before recording the vocals, but that was about it.

Huh. That's a little mad about Your Blues, It really does stick with me when I hear the new songs, and that's an album I adore.
I think Destroyer's influence on everybody is non-erasable. He really is something special.

What is your favourite song on Heartland?
I don't have a favourite song on Heartland, they've all been my favourite at one time or another. Rising and falling in the polls. "Oh Heartland, Up Yours!" is a really good one, though, I sang it drunk in a single take, in Nico's walk-in closet, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of nylon drapings and capes.

'Flare Gun' is making a reappearance on the album - is it different? Also, is the closing song related to 'What Do You Think Will Happen Next?', or are you just toying with us?
'Flare Gun' is a new version, it's an experiment with running different sections of the orchestra through a very severe noise gate. On headphones it sounds like a see-saw. '...Now?' is a new song, it has nothing to do with '...Next?'

What do the Czech Symphony add to Heartland?
Everything, really. The record sounds nothing like Song Cycle, but like Song Cycle, it's an orchestral record. There was nothing there until the orchestra laid it down.

What was it like playing with the Vienna RSO? It looked fun.
They are a world-class orchestra and the conductor was brilliant. I didn't get any sleep the night before, and as a result, my voice was timid, so it didn't go exactly according to plan. But yeah, it was fantastic. I want to write only orchestral songs, forever.

You've done some work on the forthcoming Luyas record - what was it like? From what I've heard of it it's gorgeous...
I didn't do much on the record, it was already smoking hot. Just added some bassoons and cellos to compliment the horns. A few violin ideas. I played my ARP 2600 on another song. I love that band, they are actually my favourite. Watching them play is fantastic. You've got Jessie with her polarizing singing voice, coupled with terribly non-intuitive instrumentation... moodswinger + french horn + kit? Difficult one to make it work. But they do make it work. Hearing them puzzle through it over the last couple of years has created some of the most affecting music I've heard.

What is the score for The Box like? It sounds like a really interesting project... Will the music get a release of its own?
The music from The Box is beautiful, if I may say so. It sounds like an old-fashioned recording... we used a small string ensemble and Win and Regine have a real Mellotron that they used to do a lot of the tracking with. It would work well as a score to The Conversation or something. Or The Tenant. It works great in The Box, too. I haven't seen the final cut of the movie, I'm looking forward to its premiere.

Last time round you were reading Ulysses - did you finish it? Is it good?
While working on Heartland, I was getting this strange feeling... seeing videos of The-Dream making hits in a manner of hours. Hearing about Jona Bechtolt programming songs in 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I was taking a full eleven months to produce this record, and working on it day and night. The very nature of it, featuring a fifty-piece string section, full percussion, winds and brass... it seemed so preposterous, especially given that 80% of the people who'll hear it will be listening to freely downloaded MP3s on laptop speakers.

One of the things that kept me sane about it, was to read all these gigantic, overblown classics of literature. Ulysses, sure, but also Complete Proust, Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow. I'd read one of those National Geographic style "anatomy of a whale" chapters of Moby Dick and feel like Herman was holding my hand, saying, "There there. It'll be all right."

When you put it like that - about the time involved, and people listening to a rip on laptop speakers - I think it's really great making that kind of effort. But anyway, last question. Have you played any good video games lately?
Played a bit of Flower, it was good. Looking forward to the sequel to Sin And Punishment, which has always been my favourite N64 game. Other than that, I've been off the console. I've been teaching myself how to play Bartok violin duets, singing one part and playing the other. It's an Iva Bittová exercise. Good party trick.

Heartland will be released on Domino on the 11th of January.

New Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy - Oh Heartland, Up Yours! (live, acoustic)

The one album for which I am truly excited at the moment is about an imaginary world, and its inhabitants - who all worship their creator, Owen Pallett. Heartland is going to be amazing, and I am already sure of it. The above song, which hasn't made it onto the Internet yet, as far as I know, was recorded at night in a Cardiff car park, and for some reason, the slight background noise makes it sound more like a field recording from Spectrum - one person among many, playing his part, sad and confident at the same time. It's quite beautiful, and I can't wait to hear the full version.

On the pitch of the Avenroe grasses
I will sing, sing, sing to the masses
Oh Heartland, up yours!

Heartland will be released in January. There are more details over at Domino, who are releasing the record. The lyrics to the entire album are here! There will be more Final Fantasy fun to look forward to here this week as well. Yes yes.

something happens

{best animal ever}


Samamidon - Head over Heels (Tears for Fears)

There's a certain mood that this song helps make. Like a weird sense of wonder, and dazed detachment. An odd amusement at your own odd self, kind of like suddenly realising you had misjudged the time, and there are far more hours left in your day than you'd thought, or that you'd taken more pills than you meant to. It's a little feeling of retreat, like the impulse to go to bed whenever you want, simple and soothing.

{MySpace}

I won't go missing

Land of Talk - May You Never

Elizabeth Powell's voice is many things. It is, as far as I can make out:

the Pacific Ocean,
wind racing through grass, as seen from the windows of a warm home on a stormy night,
vodka coursing down your throat,
someone holding your hand in theirs while they dance,
pepper,
lying down on an empty beach,
a murder of crows,

And many more beautiful things besides them. Correspondingly, Land of Talk's music is a mix of angry songwriting and beauty, both rough and tender. The song above is from the band's latest EP, Fun and Laughter, and it is lovely. The song below is a live collaboration by Ms Powell with Bell Orchestre, and it is spectacular.


Bell Orchestre & Elizabeth Powell - Lazy Love

You can buy the new EP right here.

here comes the bombshell

Fanfarlo - Comets

It starts all small and intense, like someone delivering the news to you, quietly, sitting beside you in the kitchen. A voice rings out, cracked and worn, and there's hard times ahead. But in the chorus, there's that familiar change, the minor fall and the major lift, and there's something to aim for. As hard as it is to hold out against the tears now, these days and these sorrows will eventually be gone.
I might have been a bit disappointed by Fanfarlo's debut, but there's no doubting that they're capable of some gorgeous songwriting. This has become one of my favourite songs lately.

{Buy}

anticipation

Arcade Fire - Burning Bridges (live)

Sure, the album won't appear until next Spring or so, but this certainly is something to get happy about:



That's some pretty spectacular praise, even if it is a little hyperbolic. Here's hoping they've recorded a proper version of the above unreleased track... though since an instrumental version was used for Miroir Noir, I kind of doubt it.

turn the summer

Paolo Nutini - Wake Up (Arcade Fire)

This is a pretty good effort at a fairly uncoverable song. Smoky and sleepy, like the morning after, waking between the sheets, lazing in the sunlight, delaying the simple job of a fun breakfast, knowing it'll be a good day. Not bad at all.

{Thanks Joel}

there's no cause for alarm

{via}


Burywood - Dead Oceans Pull Apart

Hello shakers and synths! Hello interference and distorted vocals! I haven't heard you in a while, and I haven't heard you sounding this good in even longer. But even better, that melody running around underneath you like someone hiding in bedsheets, that's gorgeous. Someone should start playing this song to all those mopey teenagers out there, to give them an idea of what's ahead of them if they can just keep their heads up. This is the kind of song that a lot of people should have in common, and should be singing on the joyous stumble home.

Burywood is from Austin, Texas. This song is brand new, and is not necessarily finished, but I love it anyway.

of something

Dappled Cities - Apart

If you were putting on a show for a friend, this would be the song at the very end, the one you play as everything in the story is happily resolved. This is what it sounds like, letting unhappiness fall behind you like an autumn leaf, and moving on. Getting out of an unhappy bed and going out in the world, enjoying it while the sun shines. Getting on a plane in the depths of winter and getting out where it's sunny. Little acts like that, the kind of things that make a good person. It's the catchiest thing I've heard in days, and it's a little like an infectious good mood.

{You can buy Zounds, their gorgeous new album, via their MySpace.}

hundreds of thousands

{via}

The Antlers - Shiva

This song, put simply, is for when everything is somehow, very slightly wrong, and you can do nothing but try and make yourself okay with that.

{More from the makers of one of the best albums of the year.}

tale of tales

Richard Godwin - Spy vs Spy

There's a moment here, just over a minute in, when a second guitar joins the song, and it's like colour spills into the scene, the sun rising in the distance, and illuminating a landscape. It's beautiful touches like this that make Richard Godwin a fine songwriter. The lyrics tell us of a pair of lovers left without trust, trailing one another down streets, barely keeping the other in sight. It's tense and desolate and sweet all at once.


Richard Godwin - For All Time

This is different. This is a Sunday evening spent wandering around an empty home. A delicate guitar line is picked out like rain hitting the windows, leaving you content to be inside from the cold. His voice, heavy and rough at first, mellows its way into the song till it gets to the warmth at the heart of it. This feels like spending the day at home with the one you love, like any other day, but completely aware of just how lucky you are to be there.

{These songs will one day be released on Modify the Van. Till then, there's always MySpace}