Island (anticipation)

[qppackard]

Some news: Island is on the Long-list for the 2020 Polaris Prize (link). Shortlist is coming July 15.

Congratulations Owen!

[Deleted]

weeknd obviously gonna win

[xfs_xth]

Owen Pallett's new album may be his best yet, finds Nick Roseblade
thequietus.com/articles/28408-owen-pallett-island-review

i still don't have the words to describe how I feel about Island, but I will say that i'm so grateful for the "end credits" versions
x

[kit]

Jun 17, 2020 15:11:25 GMT -5 xfs_xth said:

Owen Pallett's new album may be his best yet, finds Nick Roseblade
thequietus.com/articles/28408-owen-pallett-island-review

i still don't have the words to describe how I feel about Island, but I will say that i'm so grateful for the "end credits" versions
x

Wow, that's a nice review. "Hypnotic" is a good descriptor of the guitar.

I wonder if he'd still believe that Island's value lies in "never to actually reveal(ing) what he is singing about" if he'd spent any time on this forum. It seems like Owen goes to great pains to help people understand, well, maybe not exactly what each song means, but many of the mysterious little details!

[Deleted]

I didn't know how to interpret any of Owen's lyrics from this album. Songs could always be from someone else's perspective or social commentary. In his recent interview he talks about feelings of isolation and being psycho-divergent so maybe Island is about that stuff. Also did he not go through a breakup recently and get a dog? Some songs are probably about that stuff too or the build up (to getting a dog).

[eamas]

I don't recall where he said it, and I think it was in the context of the music itself rather than the lyrics-- but Owen alluded to making Island an album that develops naturally, gradually, inspired by ambient music he'd been listening to. The listener is encouraged to sit with the music thru whatever it is in that moment-- sometimes dissonance, oddness, gradual change. I think that the lyrics of Island reflect this too. I feel often like I'm similarly just meant to be sitting WITH them, letting them be what they are, and accepting how that makes me feel.

Some moments cut through this subtlety with a more active hand, like "godkiller's alive" (the first such moment on the album for me-- I've waxed poetic abt its impact), or like "started drinking on the job and the job became easy" (as everyone says that song hits hard).

Just my perspective but 90% of my thoughts on Owen's lyrics are impressionistic rather than literal. Considering even when he may be literally singing about Lewis or evocation or ghosts of CN tower, there's an echo of personal experience or philosophy informing the fiction that rarely gets *directly* faced. So I think I feel this review and agree that it's rewarding.

[Deleted]

For whatever reason I almost never try to "get something" out of Owen's lyrics or lyrics in general. To me the voice is just another instrument so I'm just listening to the tone, pitch, phonetic structure, and syllable arrangement. Could also be that I just don't really care what people are saying, not sure.

The Fire-Mare lyrics felt heartfelt to me where most of the other songs felt like story telling. Have only listened to the album twice and haven't read along so maybe my take will change over time.

[eamas]

I feel you with all of that, honestly. It's compounded by the fact that I started listening to Owen when I was really young-- he's been my favorite since just before Heartland singles started to drop, so age 11?? So I didn't know what half of the words literally meant, and kinda just had to roll with it. I know my experience is deeply Not Universal, but it definitely impacts my current listening style, and is kinda funny. What's a thermidor? I didn't think to question it until like a week ago. Do I understand after googling? Probably mostly kinda.

And ya the "Owen, are you there / end this nightmare I'm in / come to my arms in the morning" part in Firemare really hits different. that and "godkiller's alive" are the 2 moments on the album where I feel emotionally pierced.

EDIT; interesting too how everyone I've spoken to had a different such moment in the album. my roommate teared up at "St. Christopher!" and at the "if I was in love now I am nothing" part of Fire-Mare.

[Deleted]

I refuse to look up any long meaningless words anymore I'm so over learning its ridiculous. For better or for worse I grew up on Owens trashy music as well I was 15 when his first record came out and have been gay as fuck ever since.

I'm so dead emotionally that nothing on this record really moved me, I was almost bored to tears at one point but it got spicy again pretty quick.

I did just listen to Bloody Morning on my Dad's studio monitors and it sounded really fucking good, nice recording and mix I though.

[eamas]

Well, not to come off like a Good Fan (uwu), but I don't feel that Owen puts *meaningless* words into his lyrics tbh. He seems to put a shitton of time and thought into every word in every lyric, both in terms of phonetics and rhythm and meaning-- same way he is obviously very intentional about every note and chord. I do agree more broadly that you don't need to take every word literally in order to take something meaningful from his music tho.

[Deleted]

he's got you under an illusion spell its all word jumbles

[xfs_xth]

Jun 17, 2020 17:46:59 GMT -5 eamas said:

Some moments cut through this subtlety with a more active hand, like "godkiller's alive" (the first such moment on the album for me-- I've waxed poetic abt its impact), or like "started drinking on the job and the job became easy" (as everyone says that song hits hard).

this is such an incredible point, these lines as anchor/pivot points of the album that cut through the subtlety. i'd add "madness is a man among us" and "You don’t need, don’t need, don’t need to die to be forgiven"

and of course "Oh, I never learned how to hate" ... that line threaded through "Owen are you there?" and the rest of Fire-Mare reads to me as the axis of Island. the song might be Owen's finest moment to date. bless both versions!

as someone named Christopher who's been wearing a St Christopher medal almost every day since 2010 when I ran from Olympia WA for the promise of Chicago, "Saint Christopher!" is an arrow straight through me heart

i feel so grateful for this album, which really could not have come into my life at a more appropriate time. thank you Owen xo

[Deleted]

I thought of Trump instantly when I heard the madness is a man line but maybe I've been watching too much TV.

If the hate/being hated stuff is literal my suggestion to Owen is try playing the Jungle role in League of Legends you will learn hate and being hated super quickly it's a terrible role in a terrible game.

This record was timely for me as well cuz if I'm posting on this forum something is seriously wrong with my brane. Comforting to know Owen still killin the game.

[Carlo]

Hi all,

I've procrastinated writing down my thoughts about Island properly for a long time now. So I guess I'll give it a whirl. Probably not as articulate as some of you... I feel like I've legitimately have become a worse writer/lost some brain cells since I was a teenager... (a conversation for another time aha)

For the first couple of listens, I didn't want to admit (even to myself) that the album was underwhelming. It kind of seemed like this blob of sound to me, with the exception of A Bloody Morning which was immediately rewarding to me.

But I forced myself to give it more listens. I'd walk around the city I just moved to (Bristol) while the streets were mostly empty during lockdown. And the colours of the album, slowly but surely released itself to me. The first song in particular that started to have quite an impact on me was Perseverance of The Saints. It has this early-morning feeling (I think Owen mentioned this somewhere as well as an intended effect), that indeed made me want to wake up next to someone I loved. The melody the strings play is delivered in such an airy and effortless way--I always imagine some sort of humanoid creature in Spectrum literally bouncing from cloud to cloud watching over the people on the island below...

And with the rest of the album the subtleties really began to speak to me. The incessant percussiveness of the piano and the low-strings under Owen belting "God Killer's Alive"; the colliding double-tracked vocals in Fire Mare; the one-and-the-same dread and reflection of "In Darkness" and its massive string section making me feel like I had been drifting through emptiness for eons-- all just really juicy juicy rewards.

I then also remember I had a similar experience with Heartland. My brain didn't really know what to do with it initially except for Lewis Takes Action and Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, which I immediately loved, the other tracks fell flat for me... but after listens and listens, they really released their colour to me and it was so so rewarding.

I'm going to ramble from here on so beware....

I've had an incredible experience with Owen's music. "Song Song Song" was on a CD-mixtape that my sister gave me for part of my 10th birthday present. I loved tapping my feet to the violin hits and the layers of the percussion section. The next song I heard was "The Sea" which I also liked listening before going to bed, often humming to myself "Sweet Confusion You'll Be My Only Child, My Only Child". I was obviously too young to know what they were singing about.

Their lyrics was my first introduction to any sort of queer discourse. But as I slowly began to become curious about the lyrics and what they meant, then these concepts became clear to me... and eventually helped me come to terms with my sexuality and identity. For whatever reason I didn't really listen to Owen's other music except literally those two songs until Heartland came out. Then, when I was around 15 the album became my favorite. And I'd listen to it whenever I could--and was so fascinated with the music as well as Spectrum's mythology.

I had a rough time in my teens (like everyone else), and a friendship/relationship that I still think of a decade on. (Perhaps unhealthily) I projected a lot of what Owen sang about in Heartland onto this friendship. I fell in love with this red-haired boy that reminded me of Owen's concept of Lewis... He loved me, but not romantically. We were best friends... A typical story that most young gay men are acquainted with... But the dynamic between us soon became toxic, and even to a point where I emotionally terrorised him by threatening to kill myself if he couldn't love me that way... I kind of built this mythology of myself in my teenage naivety which was this twisted version of Heartland that I thought was my life...

But it's just incredible and kind of surreal coming back to Spectrum when Island came out, literally a decade on. I've grown as a person, dealt with my shit to a certain extent, but this looming dread of being human and that chaotic adolescent lust and rage still wanders in some subroutine somewhere in my brain. And all the Pomp in the music is gone, and we're left with this subtle, beautiful, devastating record about the character I fell in love with ten years ago. And he's just starting shit on an island. And gets fucked by a crystaline dong and flung into space. And as for me in real life, I'm doing fine I have a job and am mostly chilling and doing what I want... but more often than not I feel like I've been washed up on an island with no desire to do anything except get black out drunk and fight people (well not actually. I'm not much of a fighter)...

Remember when Owen talked about "The Secret Seven" in In Conflict, and how things don't necessarily get better? Six years on from that, and the darkest points of my life (which again, was probably not that dark, but fucking abysmal in my own tiny universe-brain), I feel that so much. But not in a way to be pittied, and not in a way of remorse. But I feel this sense of being vacuous and that dread of being human every now and then that hasn't gone away through the years. And I'm fine, and get help when I need it but. It's so interesting. All of it.

I honestly don't know how what the fuck I just wrote, but my point is that Owen's music has found itself in very pivotal and terminal moments of my life. And I'm grateful for that. And intrigued.

[NickFlowers]

Hi Owen! Frist of all, i forgot i made an account here like years ago, since then i've been obsesed with your work (both solo projects and arragement works) and i've been waiting Island since 2017 and now i'm really happy that it's finally here.

I still love how the narrative works and i was a bit scared about the fact that "this is a purely acoustic album" because i like the "In Conflict" electronics. I have my personal take about how Lewis and Owen relationship evolves and it got me into tears right at the end with "Lewis gets F..." (i see what you did there at the end hehe) and In Darkness. But my favorite track by far is Perseverance of the Saints, it kinda reminds me of Super Mario Galaxy OST but the lyrics by it self are so heartwarming.

I'm a video editor and i'm working on a essay introduccing to the Heartland/Island narrative and i hope finish it before the umm... the state of the world gets worse.

Also, what's the time signature of "A Bloody Morning"?? i'm having trouble playing it on guitar and piano.

Thanks for the record and i hope you are doing well. It meant so much to me