Owen Pallett
| Owen Pallett | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Michael James Owen Pallett |
| Born |
September 7, 1979 Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Indie pop, classical, baroque pop, art rock, experimental music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, arranger |
| Instruments | Violin, viola, vocals, piano, harpsichord, synthesizer, guitar, bass |
| Labels |
Blocks Recording Club Tomlab Domino Records |
| Associated acts | Final Fantasy Les Mouches Enter the Haggis Picastro Arcade Fire The Last Shadow Puppets |
| Website | owenpalletteternal.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Violin, ARP 2600 | |
Michael James Owen Pallett (born September 7, 1979) is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist, who performs solo as Owen Pallett or, before 2010, under the name Final Fantasy. As Final Fantasy, he won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds.
From the age of 3, Pallett studied classical violin, and composed his first piece at age 13. A notable early composition includes some of the music for the game Traffic Department 2192; he moved on to scoring films, to composing two operas while in university. Apart from the indie music scene, he has had commissions from the Barbican, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada, Bang on a Can, Ecstatic Music Festival, the Vancouver CBC Orchestra, and Fine Young Classicals.
On his Final Fantasy releases, Pallett has collaborated with Leon Taheny, who is credited as drummer and engineer. Following the release of Heartland, Pallett has toured with guitarist/percussionist Thomas Gill and more recently with his former collaborators in Les Mouches, Rob Gordon and Matt Smith.
Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a loop pedal. Pallett uses Max/MSP and SooperLooper to do multi-phonic looping, which sends his violin signal to amplifiers across the stage.
In January 2014, Pallett and William Butler were nominated for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards for their work on Her.
The name Final Fantasy, under which Pallett recorded prior to the release of Heartland, was a tribute to the well-known video game series, although he said that it is not one of his top twenty favorite games.
Pallett's debut album, Has a Good Home, was released on February 12, 2005, by the Blocks Recording Club, a cooperative, Toronto-based record label of which he is a founding member. "An Arrow in the Side of Final Fantasy" borrows the music from the Space Zone's final level in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. "Adventure.exe" from this album was used in a series of 2006 commercials by Orange in the United Kingdom. Pallett did not intend to sell the song for this purpose, but its use was authorized due to an alleged miscommunication with his record label, Tomlab. All of Pallett's income from this use is donated to Doctors Without Borders.
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