Final Fantasy
Label: TomlabGenre: Experimental, Pop
You can call me a philistine, but the term “experimental” scares me a little bit. Maybe y’all agree with me? More often than I am comfortable with “experimental” becomes some sort of catch-all term for… well, for lots of things that wouldn’t be nice to say here in this my first post of the new year. Alas, Canadian violinist Owen Pallet AKA Final Fantasy, who notably arranged the strings for Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” amongst other past musical endeavors, is unequivocally “experimenting” with his solo musical offerings and I can’t find a single unkind word for him, nor would I want to. These songs are non-linear, funny, offbeat, complex and unexpectedly beautiful. Pallet maintains all of the musicality of his classical training while successfully maintaining a lovely pop sensibility. Now don't get me wrong, there are absolutely traces of some of the oft-loathed hallmarks of “the independent sensibility” (i.e. utilizing the word poo in the album title, naming oneself after something random like a video game, writing an album that is apparently “an eight-song cycle about the eight schools of magic in Dungeons & Dragons,” etc.) but he’s smart. Really, really smart. So Pallet gets away with all his geeky wit and irony like a bandit. All things said, I’m really shy about dropping the L-word, folks, but let me say here, loud and proud: I love this. Don’t dig it? Then just listen one more time, for me, and then decide. Okay?
This Lamb Sells Condos [MP3, 5.33MB, 160 kbps]
Arctic Circle [MP3, 5MB, 160 kbps]
Song Song Song [MP3, 5.2MB, 160 kbps]
I'm Afraid of Japan [MP3, 4.5MB, 160 kbps]
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