david nermeroff
Toronto’s Owen Pallett, the sole designer and proprietor of Final
Fantasy, is a technically astonishing and vision-laden
musician.
In recent years, he’s split his time between writing arrangements for
and playing in esteemed ensembles such as Arcade Fire and the Hidden
Cameras, and his own work as FF, including his last full-length, the
excellent and widely lauded He Poos Clouds (winner of the 2006
Polaris Prize, Canada’s most prestigious music award). He has two
limited-edition EPs (Spectrum, 14th Century on Blocks Recording
Club and Final Fantasy Plays to Please on Slender Means
Society/States Rights Pregnancy Series) coming out this fall, and is
working on his next full length, Heartland, in perpetuity.
You have two EPs coming out. The first one (Spectrum, 14th
Century) is imaginary field recordings, is that right?
It’s more like fake field recordings from a fictional country. The
country is called Spectrum, and I’m the sole deity of it. The
characters [in Spectrum] all worship me. Of the five songs on
the EP, three are devotional songs from characters in the country.
How much supplementary writing work did you do in conceiving the
country?
I’m embarrassed to say; there’s quite a lot of stuff. But it’s like
asking, when you look at a beautiful house, what the foundations are
like—it doesn’t matter. I came up with the idea for the EP about
two years ago. But other things have been going on; it’s taken a lot
longer to get things done. I keep getting caught up with arranging for
other people and touring.
What are your ideas about the role of fantasy in your own
art-making?
Well, there’s some sort of visceral beauty in a lot of the fantasy
that I read as a kid that reminds me of being a presexual entity. But
it’s very sexy in a really presexual way; I remember reading about owls
and dragons doing it, and it was kind of boner material. As an adult,
it’s interesting to see that most of my favorite fantasy and science
fiction from childhood was social commentary in some form.
Does your next full-length have any relationship to the fictional
country?
Oh yeah, it takes place entirely in that country. And it has a plot
that’s secondary to its album-ness. To be honest, I think it’s really
far more legible than—I mean, the most legible concept album that
I’ve ever heard is Dream Theater. They had a song and then an album
that was part two of the song, kind of like a Phil Elverum thing, but
in this super-American literal way. I don’t remember what it was
called; it had this big face on the cover. But yeah, I remember
listening to that and, in between the triple rolls, I remember hearing
a really, really overt story.
Like Trapped in the Closet?
Well, not quite as literal as that, but…
More literal than The Wall?
Well, I don’t know, The Wall is pretty literal.
Do you feel like all of the characters in Spectrum are part
of a very clear allegorical framework?
Yeah, it’s more allegorical for sure. This Spectrum EP is
really meant to illustrate the backgrounds and the tendencies of these
people. But, how well can I do that? I mean, I’m not writing
appendices, I’m writing a verse and a chorus and trying to inform you a
bit about the people. But, really, they’re all sort of really
extroverted versions of my own feelings. Like: I hate me and they hate
me, too. Or: I hate gays; they hate gays—stuff like that
[preemptive note: Owen is homosexual]. So, I think people
will kind of get it. There’s a few sort of notes of colonialism and
urban planning as well. This country Spectrum is based on a Canada that
was never colonized—that is to say, it was colonized but there
was never any genocide of any First Nation people.
So everyone built the society together?
Exactly. It was a colony that wasn’t based on guilt, which had a
culture that was not based on oppression and guilt and massacres, but
rather was simply allowed to develop on its own. Kind of like Pitcairn
Island, though I guess Pitcairn Island had its other sort of problems.
But yeah, Spectrum is a much more pastoral, sort of Owen-worshipping
kind of country. But, aside from this, I’m just trying to write some
good songs. 