Owen Pallett
Categories: Musician stubs | Canadian musicians | Gay musicians
Owen Pallett is a violinist and singer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is the principal member of the band Final Fantasy, which is essentially a solo group, although Leon Taheny is also credited as drummer and engineer. The group is credited with starting the genre known as "violindie" (a portmanteau of violin and indie).
As Final Fantasy, Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a sampler controlled by foot pedals, which then loops back one or more of the previously played musical phrases as he plays additional parts simultaneously. He has also performed with more traditional string quartets as backing musicians.
He believes his work is strongly influenced by his homosexuality and the gay aesthetic, saying "As far as whether the music I make is gay or queer, yeah, it comes from the fact that I'm gay," in a recent interview.
On 12 February 2005, his debut album, Final Fantasy Has A Good Home, was released by the recording club Blocks (sometimes referred to as 'BlocksBlocksBlocks'), a cooperative, Toronto-based, record label of which he is a member. A second album is planned for 2006.
His previous projects included a 3-piece Toronto-based band, Les Mouches, now defunct. Owen has also recorded and toured with The Hidden Cameras and The Arcade Fire. One of his songs, "This Is the Dream of Win & Regine", was inspired by the principal members of the latter group, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne.
The name "Final Fantasy" is in fact a tribute to the considerably more well-known video game series.