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Post by adrestia on Nov 28, 2019 10:26:28 GMT -5
This reminds me that I never shared my mountain/heart tattoo*** inspired by The Miner Becomes Forgetful that I got this fall!! (***CW anatomical heart, male chest, selfie). Bit of a blurry picture, and it still needs touching up-- I want to add the final two lyrics in a small handwritten font-- but the song, the imagery, and the location on my pec are all relevant to me as a trans guy and trauma survivor. So the timing of the news about its re-release was really swell for me personally.  This tattoo RULES!!! I love the symbolism behind it as well- it's always amazing to me how many layers of personal meaning one can fit in a singular tattoo. (And excellent choice of lyrics!) I'm also interested in art direction for album art, as well as merchandise... so many things to be excited for! |
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Post by birdonthewire on Nov 28, 2019 14:36:45 GMT -5
Hey Everyone, is anyone going to the bluebird festival and can send me over some excited spirits? I booked it all and was so looking forward to finally to go an show again, and also see Giant Sand (never seen live so should be enough motivation maybe) and Kathryn Joseph and maybe find some other new stuff too, super lucky to get the leave tomorrow too.... And am now in massive doldrums mode/mood with lots of stuff going on that would much rather make me creep under my duvet tomorrow morning and not come out all day rather than take a train early in the morning. I know it's not a agony aunt board. Looking forward to next year, if the year will be less than ok then at least there's a new release to look forward to.
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kit
Pretty Girl
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Post by kit on Nov 28, 2019 22:06:52 GMT -5
This reminds me that I never shared my mountain/heart tattoo*** inspired by The Miner Becomes Forgetful that I got this fall!! That's so cool! As beautiful as its source material |
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eamas
Pretty Girl
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Post by eamas on Nov 30, 2019 3:32:25 GMT -5
Aw shucks. Thanks, you guys!! That's really really sweet to hear! Also, birdonthewire: I won't be going to the festival, but please feel free to report back how you felt about it if you went, I think. And if you decided to take a day to recuperate, then I hope that was lovely too! We don't really have an active "Let's Talk Small" thread anymore, but I always thought the ability to share non-OP specific topics with the group was nice. So no shame in sharing your doldrums, imo!! |
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Post by Cat on Nov 30, 2019 10:54:41 GMT -5
Hey Everyone, is anyone going to the bluebird festival and can send me over some excited spirits? I booked it all and was so looking forward to finally to go an show again, and also see Giant Sand (never seen live so should be enough motivation maybe) and Kathryn Joseph and maybe find some other new stuff too, super lucky to get the leave tomorrow too.... And am now in massive doldrums mode/mood with lots of stuff going on that would much rather make me creep under my duvet tomorrow morning and not come out all day rather than take a train early in the morning. I know it's not a agony aunt board. Looking forward to next year, if the year will be less than ok then at least there's a new release to look forward to. Aww I’m sorry, I hope you feel better soon! I only just saw this but I was there last night for Kathryn and I’m coming tonight for Owen, then I’m going to Munich tomorrow! Can’t wait to see Owen again, I’ll let you all know how it goes |
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Post by skuldchan on Dec 2, 2019 3:37:58 GMT -5
I was at the Munich show yesterday, and ran into the lovely Cat! (So nice to meet you, Cat, and hope to catch you again at future European shows!)
I hadn't managed to catch an Owen show since 2014, so it was absolutely lovely to see him again with the guitar and new arrangements. Lovely renditions of "I Am Not Afraid" and "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt". My wife caught some video on her phone, so might post later.
Owen, I'm wondering if you can share some of the process that went into creating the background visuals you now have for your shows. Who did them? How much input did you have for the design and the ambiance of each one? It was a beautiful show, and I appreciate the time you took to chat.
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Post by Owen from Final Fantasy on Dec 3, 2019 14:30:35 GMT -5
The visuals were done by the artist Trudy Ellmore. I really wanted some kind of visual element to the shows, but eschewed the typical content of "live projections" at shows. My inspiration was the opening shots of "Last Year At Marienbad"-- long tracking shots of the ceilings of fancy interiors. I thought that having slow, single-take tracking shots would reflect the mood and content of the new songs and performance style.
Trudy and I talked about how to do this, and we both agreed that rendered environments would be really interesting, so she made the videos she did. The video for "Polar Vortex" was the first she came up with and I was immediately transfixed. I'm so happy with her work.
I'm at a point now where I'm going to write new sets and incorporate new arrangements of old songs (and newer ones!) and get even more videos from Trudy. Very excited for upcoming shows!
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Post by skuldchan on Dec 3, 2019 15:55:42 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing Trudy's work with all of us at your shows. The environments for Polar Vortex were indeed striking, as was the lava for Fire-Mare, which has really stuck out in my memory. I think they're amazing, ambient visuals for the show, and highlight the different songs well as you transition through them. I also really liked the canyons for Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, and was pleased to see that the color scheme was similar to what I see in my head for the song (I have mild musical synesthesia).
I can't wait to hear the new arrangements (I Am Not Afraid was a real treat), and see more of Trudy's videos on your tour next year! Have a lovely winter holiday season. Thank you!
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eamas
Pretty Girl
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Post by eamas on Dec 3, 2019 19:07:45 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing Trudy's work with all of us at your shows. The environments for Polar Vortex were indeed striking, as was the lava for Fire-Mare, which has really stuck out in my memory. I think they're amazing, ambient visuals for the show, and highlight the different songs well as you transition through them. I also really liked the canyons for Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, and was pleased to see that the color scheme was similar to what I see in my head for the song (I have mild musical synesthesia). I can't wait to hear the new arrangements (I Am Not Afraid was a real treat), and see more of Trudy's videos on your tour next year! Have a lovely winter holiday season. Thank you! Hey, that's so cool! I also have musical synesthesia! I have always wondered if a higher than average number of Owen's fans do. His music is extremely pleasing synesthetically, as most orchestral and pop music tends to be. Was it an orange canyon?? Lewis Takes Off his Shirt is also orange for me! Also, I hope you're able to post the concert video you mentioned-- I'd love to hear it. Regarding the new shows more generally, I have nothing more to add aside from my typical enthusiasm, so here's that: they sound SO cool. (I feel like I post here JUST to enthuse a lot, but it's about something new every time, so... ya know... I will probably just keep doing that.  ) |
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Post by Owen from Final Fantasy on Dec 3, 2019 21:41:07 GMT -5
I don't have synaesthesia at all, but I definitely aurally prefer to gravitate to certain keys over others. (e-minor, c#-minor and b-minor; Bb-major, Ab-major and Db-major). Certain songs that are in, say, D-major (like "...Shirt") do stick out as being weirdly more strident than others. It is a coincidence that Shirt = yellow-orange visuals = D-major (the key usually associated with that colour) but I'll pay extra attention when commissioning videos in the future to try and anticipate a complimentary reaction for synaesthetes!
Since "Estranged" I've been working at writing songs with more ambiguous key centres-- it's especially overt on Island. For me it's really about a kind of tonal richness but I would imagine that it's pretty trippy for people with perfect pitch or synaesthesia or any other such phenomenon.
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eamas
Pretty Girl
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Post by eamas on Dec 3, 2019 23:05:10 GMT -5
Ah Owen! I had always been curious if you had synesthesia at all, so thanks for addressing what I was too shy to ask! I also had no idea that it had been studied enough to identify patterns.
I am really touched by the considerateness of thinking about synesthesia in video design. I am not personally bothered by key ambiguity, as someone whose synesthesia is I think fairly "severe". It's just a different experience, kinda like looking at modern art rather than baroque? With regard to concert visuals/album art/music videos, though, it can DEFINITELY be VERY trippy for me if there's a mismatch. Like someone is saying "B, B, B, B" and pointing to a screen projecting the letter "J." Or like that exercise where you read the word "blue" written in red text. But I will say the visuals are still enjoyable even if they don't match up, for what that's worth. It's just extra cool if they do.
(Me, resisting the urge to make another "oh gosh, that's so exciting" post 3 hours after my previous one: ":-] ahh")
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Post by skuldchan on Dec 4, 2019 14:44:58 GMT -5
Hey, that's so cool! I also have musical synesthesia! I have always wondered if a higher than average number of Owen's fans do. His music is extremely pleasing synesthetically, as most orchestral and pop music tends to be. Oh, that's so, so cool! I would like to pick your brain, maybe in a different thread, about your musical synesthesia, which sounds like it's a more robust visual phenomenon than mine. "The Great Elsewhere" does really interesting things to me that no other song I've ever listened to does, and I'm curious as to whether you have a really rare reaction to that song in particular, like I do, or other songs in Owen's oeuvre. Yes! The canyon was orangey-yellow! In the fifth image of this this Instagram set, you can see the canyon in the background. Here you go! "I Am Not Afraid" leading into "That's When the Audience Died", as part of the three-song encore that Owen played after he got delivered a nice glass of red wine. (Thanks to my wife, who had the Samsung Galaxy 10, and therefore a decent camera and mic in it.) It is a coincidence that Shirt = yellow-orange visuals = D-major (the key usually associated with that colour) but I'll pay extra attention when commissioning videos in the future to try and anticipate a complimentary reaction for synaesthetes! Ooo, I didn't know that certain keys have certain colors associated with them. It is very kind of you to consider us synesthetes, Owen. I am not terribly bothered when the colors of background videos or projections or lightning don't match the song. It's an extra cherry on top of the cake when it does, but in all honesty, seeing you play live is the best cake already. I am more of a soundscape-synesthete, but I wonder if the spread of color-congruence would be different between Owen's songs that are strongly centered around a key and songs that are more ambiguous? Really curious to hear about what a strong pitch-synesthete hears for the songs on Island that are more key-ambiguous! ( eamas , are you one of those who sees a different color for each key?) |
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eamas
Pretty Girl
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Post by eamas on Dec 4, 2019 18:01:23 GMT -5
Key is very relevant for me, yeah- but individual pitches also have color, so it gets weird. To use the LTOHS as an example: D as both a pitch and a key is orange, but the piano riff contains a lot of B and C#, so I see green and blue blips in those sections, enveloped within the orange D Major "backdrop". It moves as the song moves, far more like a video than a picture.
Instrumentation also matters; for piano/guitar, pitches are represented by a blip (or cascade of different-colored blips for chords), while for violin it's a spread like paint. This affects how I perceive key-ambiguous pieces a lot. "Estranged" for example is very strongly blue-- I guess due to the rich orchestration emphasizing the centrality of the blue c chord in the piece? So TLDR it will depend on the instrumentation of the final cuts on Island. I am excited to find out.
I LOVE that video! I know it's probably because it's encore, but using the projector opens the way for some really powerful moments when the visuals are shut to black, huh? Owen's vocals are REALLY lovely in this recording. Cool new hairstyle, too! Thanks for sharing, skuldchan!
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Post by skuldchan on Dec 6, 2019 13:30:03 GMT -5
Instrumentation also matters; for piano/guitar, pitches are represented by a blip (or cascade of different-colored blips for chords), while for violin it's a spread like paint. Oh, that sounds like it looks really neat! Does this mean that different arrangements then look different to you? Like, "The Great Elsewhere" has a lot of ambient sounds and more orchestra than the live arrangements. How much of a difference does that make for what you see? And you're welcome for the video, always happy to share Owen's lovely live performances with everybody. |
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Post by Cat on Dec 6, 2019 19:15:47 GMT -5
I was at the Munich show yesterday, and ran into the lovely Cat! (So nice to meet you, Cat, and hope to catch you again at future European shows!) Sorry for the delayed response, I just got home last night! It was really lovely to meet you and your wife, and lucyndaria too. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon! I’ve posted a clip of each song on twitter at @worldwideoweb (I tried to do it as a thread but it took so long to post that it kept splitting it up so you can find them if you go on the profile). The set was the same both nights except he added I Am Not Afraid on the guitar in Munich, I think it was similar to the Canadian shows. It was absolutely incredible, I’ve been at all 6 of the Island shows in Europe since 2015 and it’s been more and more gorgeous every time <3 And the visuals made it even more beautiful! I have a few full song videos which I’ll post to youtube when I get the chance (probably not for another couple of weeks because I have my PhD viva coming up!) Hopefully I’ll make it to Hamburg next year, I’ve bought a ticket but I still need to sort out flights/check I can take holiday. |
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