A FARMER, SOME MAGIC, AND A MEAN VIOLIN

March 17, 2010

A FARMER, SOME MAGIC, AND A MEAN VIOLIN

BY MIKE VICHNITCHKINE

Owen Pallett‘s latest album, Heartland, is ―very interesting‖, in the words of one student. Upon hearing about the basic idea, another student could only say, ―what the . . . ?‖ The plot of Heartland, a concept album is as follows: A farmer named Lewis travels the fantasy land of Spectrum, battling evil creatures with magic as he tries to come to terms with his love for his creator, Owen Pallett. If that isn‘t worthy of a ―WTF‖, I don‘t know what is. And yet, Pallett manages to make it work. With intense orchestral hooks and gripping melodies, the man who once just co-wrote string arrangements for other bands carves out his own musical persona. He‘s weird. He‘s kind of a nerd. And he plays a mean violin.

Pallett‘s first two album were both excellent. Without Heartland’s electronic influences, Pallett‘s talent shone clearly. Both were deceptively rich in sound, despite being solo endeavours. Nevertheless, Heartland will be a lot of peoples‘ first taste of his eclectic musical style. Despite being undeniably strange in presentation, it is much more accessible than his previous works. Its electronic elements are bound to catch the interests of many peo-ple who just aren‘t that into orchestral music. It is, however, much less personal than his two older albums. Whereas Has a Good Home and He Poos Clouds dealt mostly with regular people and their issues, Heartland‘s Lewis is difficult to relate to, being about a farmer in a make-believe world. Regardless, I think everybody should give it a listen. To say the least, it‘s entertaining.

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