Island (anticipation)

[eamas]

Absolutely living for this new picture on Instagram, and also for the news that Owen is composing some work for the Art Gallery of Ontario! (source)

Also some tour dates (!!) (also again, that photoshoot works so damn well for promo material, iconique)
 (source)

Finally, I am not ashamed to say that I came here to share this picture of what I presume to be Owen's dog.

 thehardtimes.net/blog/punk-dead-hell-know-im-bernese-mountain-dog/

Hope everyone's doing great and that if you do make it to a show, you'll have a chance to post an update!!

[adrestia]

Happy October! Hope everyone is doing well. As September has come and gone (way too fast, in my opinion), are there any updates on an Island release date? I thought I recalled reading here that the new release date was to be decided on during September, so I was curious.

[tangowhiskeyman]

From the last page of the thread.

Aug 24, 2019 14:40:37 GMT -5 Owen from Final Fantasy said:

Thanks for your kind wishes!

I've been incredibly busy, recently. I've scored three films this year, a play, and worked as producer and/or arranger on a dozen or so records. I'm currently putting together a gala concert for the Art Gallery Of Ontario, creating work for harpsichord duo and antiphonal choir. I'm scoring a fourth film (the biggest project I've ever worked on), and prepping a bunch of new and old songs for upcoming performances. (I finally figured out a way of performing "Lewis/Shirt" with my recent guitar/violin set-up, and I'm very pleased with the results.)

We were looking forward to a September release of Island, but label, management and myself all agreed it'd be a good idea to prioritize my mental health. I've been really happy in my patterns of working from studio and spending time with friends, family, boyfriend and dog. So, we're waiting for some time longer. We'll be deciding next month on a new release date. We've already shot one video, but I have an ambitious video in mind and a director who is excited to do it, and so I'll be working on that this fall as well.

I'm still sitting on three soundtrack releases ("The Wait", "Life" and "Illusions Of Control"). We're still working out the logistics of their release. All the music I made 2004-2009 has been remastered and is being repackaged for re-release under my own name. It all sounds amazing; I did some cursory remixing of certain tracks (especially on Plays To Please) and the new master sounds extremely good. The original masters were very satisfactory, but time has given us perspective, and I'm much more satisfied with the way things are sounding now. He Poos Clouds in particular sounds like a breath of fresh air, like a whole new record-- there are details present that I'd forgot even were there. We're hoping to get them up on streaming services before the end of the year, and vinyl re-pressings in 2020.

In the meantime, thank you for your patience.

[adrestia]

Yep, the sentence “We'll be deciding next month on a new release date” is what specifically piqued my interest and prompted me to comment! :-)

[xfs_xth]

did anyone attend Songs of Heaven at AGO?

[mattgcn]

Very excited to come back here and see you're doing well Saw there was still tickets for the second Toronto show this week so I'll see you there!

[n8c]

Hi Owen! It's been a few months since you mentioned that you and your team would be considering a new Island release date in September--any news about the album release you might be able to share with us? Hope things have eased off a little for you. From your previous posts, it sounds like the late summer and fall were insanity for you.

[mattgcn]

Hearing the songs live again (Longboat Hall again, just like two years ago!!) only furthered my anticipation!! ahhh!!!

[adrestia]

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I've seen some pictures around of the recent live shows and it's making me so excited to try to catch a future tour, everything looks and sounds fantastic...

I've also had He Poos Clouds on repeat a lot lately, which has just made me even more excited for the remasters of old songs to go up on Spotify. Fingers crossed those will come soon, as it is nearing the end of the year!!

Lastly- I'm probably late to this realization, but I realized yesterday that 2020 is the 10th anniversary of Heartland's release! Should Island be released next year, that'll be great timing for a continuation of Lewis' story :-)

[kit]

Nov 17, 2019 16:24:53 GMT -5 adrestia said:

I've also had He Poos Clouds on repeat a lot lately, which has just made me even more excited for the remasters of old songs to go up on Spotify.

This makes me wonder: will it just be those album tracks that are remastered, or is there a chance some other stuff will be as well? I was listening to the Many Lives EP today and was reminded of the wonderful song The Miner Becomes Forgetful. I'd really love a remastered version of that!

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

Hey everyone

1. Everything, like every single pre-2010 track has been remastered and will be available either this year or next on streaming services. We will be pressing the main Final Fantasy releases (two albums, two EPs) to vinyl as Owen Pallett albums, and making all the other material (incl. rare stuff like Young Canadian Mothers) available for streaming, but the non-album stuff won't be pressed. It won't be happening all at once, but we'll be putting (at the very least) the two albums proper up on streaming before the end of the year. Everything will be available at some point in 2020.

2. Island's release date is still being discussed. It's all administrative concerns, but we're working on it!

3. There are three soundtracks on the dock right now ("The Wait", "Life", "Illusions Of Control"), and the film I'm currently scoring has some of the best music I've ever written in it so there will be FOUR on the dock as of early next year. We planned to press to vinyl, but it might not be wise, economically? We're not sure.

4. The shows these past two weeks went great! My pedal board got rewired recently and I realized there was a problem with some long cabling that was enormously effecting the tone of my violin and guitar, but I fixed it today. I have a plan in place now for more flexible set-list planning, adding seven-to-ten older songs into rotation. (Certain songs like "Many Lives" and "Soldiers Rock" are shoo-ins, others like "Song Song Song" don't fit the tone of the current set list and will likely not be incorporated.)

That's all for now hope you're all having a lovely fall.

[diego4533]

Nov 23, 2019 12:15:29 GMT -5 Owen from Final Fantasy said:

Hey everyone

1. Everything, like every single pre-2010 track has been remastered and will be available either this year or next on streaming services. We will be pressing the main Final Fantasy releases (two albums, two EPs) to vinyl as Owen Pallett albums, and making all the other material (incl. rare stuff like Young Canadian Mothers) available for streaming, but the non-album stuff won't be pressed. It won't be happening all at once, but we'll be putting (at the very least) the two albums proper up on streaming before the end of the year. Everything will be available at some point in 2020.

2. Island's release date is still being discussed. It's all administrative concerns, but we're working on it!

3. There are three soundtracks on the dock right now ("The Wait", "Life", "Illusions Of Control"), and the film I'm currently scoring has some of the best music I've ever written in it so there will be FOUR on the dock as of early next year. We planned to press to vinyl, but it might not be wise, economically? We're not sure.

4. The shows these past two weeks went great! My pedal board got rewired recently and I realized there was a problem with some long cabling that was enormously effecting the tone of my violin and guitar, but I fixed it today. I have a plan in place now for more flexible set-list planning, adding seven-to-ten older songs into rotation. (Certain songs like "Many Lives" and "Soldiers Rock" are shoo-ins, others like "Song Song Song" don't fit the tone of the current set list and will likely not be incorporated.)

That's all for now hope you're all having a lovely fall.

Exciting! Thank you so much for the update, Owen! I hope it's OK if I ask some more stuff regarding what you have already mentioned:

1. Among the remastered releases, will there be things that were not released before? In particular, I'm thinking about the "The George Cedric Metcalf Foundation" 7" which I think was never released? (If it DOES exist, then it's your only release I'm missing and have absolutely no idea where to find it) But also talking about older songs you may have rediscovered while working on the remasters.

2. Island! Exciting! Can't wait for an official single!

3. I remember you were saying you hoped to have The Wait as a one LP album. Is this the plan with the other releases too? And please don't dismiss pressing them to vinyl! Have you thought about at least a small-run boxset like "Owen Pallett: The Soundtracks: 2013-2020"? I'd love a release like that!

4. Can't wait for more tour dates!

Have a great time, Owen! We always love to hear from you

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

There are a couple of unreleased tracks, but the songs on that aforementioned 7" were all recorded and released in other places. There are certain unreleased tracks that I doubt I'll ever put out ("The End Of The End Of Time", "The Drones") because they're just not that good. Much more interested in new material.

The Wait, Life, Illusions Of Control are all ~40 minute albums that work REALLY WELL as stand-alone releases. (The film I'm working on now has 80 minutes of music in it, it's really insane; it will surely be a stand-alone release as well). We have drafted LP art for all these releases-- we may try a 500 LP run for the first of the soundtracks and see if we can sell it, and if so, keep it going. Otherwise we'll probably just release them digital-only. <3

[adrestia]

AHHH, how exciting- thank you so much for the update! Crazy how fast this year goes by, if the two FF albums will be up by the end of the year, that's next month (a few weeks!). I'm so stoked! Additionally pumped to hear that even the rarer pre-2010 releases are getting remastered.

So much to be excited about in one reply- like everyone else, I eagerly await Island, the upcoming soundtracks, and more tour dates Thank you as always for stopping by, updates to these threads always make my day! Hope you're having a lovely fall as well.

[eamas]

This is fantastic news. I'm not even sure which part to be most excited about. I would be more than willing to put down the money to own those
soundtracks in vinyl, lol. And maybe it's a kinda silly thing to get excited about, but I'm very excited to see what direction is taken with the cover art. (Ditto for Island, of course.)

Speaking of, all this merch talk has me wondering what sort of merch might be planned for Island? T shirts? Tote bags? Ever consider another scorebook?

Nov 22, 2019 at 8:48pm kit said:
I was listening to the Many Lives EP today and was reminded of the wonderful song The Miner Becomes Forgetful. I'd really love a remastered version of that!

Right? That song rules. I am SO excited to hear that the entire catalog is being remastered.

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.

Not to go off about personal stuff. I'm excited to finally be able to stream, and to hear my favorite old songs with a fresh set of ears.