Dinner With The Band

Owen Pallett's live violin-looping project was named Final Fantasy, in tribute to the melodramatic videogame series.  Final Fantasy's debut album "Has A Good Home" (Blocks/Tomlab) was released in April 2005.  The sophomore album, "He Poos Clouds" (Blocks/Tomlab) was written and arranged entirely for string quartet, and is a satirical song cycle based on the eight schools of magic according to Dungeons and Dragons.   The Village Voice praised it as having "the best lyrics of the year", Pitchfork described it as "a joy to hear... this is, in a word, fierce--it can engage you on a level most albums can't", and many publications put it in their top ten lists for the year. Canadian journalists voted and awarded it the inaugural Polaris Prize for best Canadian full-length album.



Owen has been touring Final Fantasy constantly while writing string and orchestral arrangements for many releases, including Arcade Fire's "Neon Bible" (and "Funeral"), Grizzly Bear's "Yellow House", Beirut's "The Flying Club Cup" and The Last Shadow Puppets' "The Age of the Understatement".  In 2008, Owen curated the Maximum Black Festival a music series that featured Deerhoof, Stephen O'Malley, Alexander Tucker, and The Dirty Projectors amongst others.  Final Fantasy released 2 EPs in 2009: "Spectrum, 14th Century" (Blocks/For Great Justice) and "Plays To Please" (Slender Means Society/States Rights Records/Blocks).  The former contains field recordings from the fictional land of Spectrum, and the latter is a big band tribute to songwriter Alex Lukashevsky of the band Deep Dark United.  Owen's recent orchestral arrangement work is featured on Pet Shop Boys' "Yes" and The Rumblestrips "Welcome to the Walk Alone" produced by Mark Ronson.  He has also orchestrated and conducted the film score for Richard Kelly's forthcoming movie The Box (2009) with Win Butler and Regine Chassagne.  Highlights from the Final Fantasy repertoire were performed by The Brooklyn Philharmonic at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House as part of its 2009 season and will also be reprised by the Symphony Nova Scotia.  Owen is currently completing work on his forthcoming full-length romance album entitled "Heartland" to be released on Domino Records in the early days of 2010.