Final Fantasy - "Heartland" album details

Press release from Domino

Heartland exists. The third Final Fantasy full-length and the first for Domino, it is the product of nine months of work in four countries. Heartland is a fully orchestral record, designed to exist simultaneously as an album, a 45-minute piece of orchestral music and a set of songs for looped violin and voice. Heartland will be released by Domino on Monday the 11th of January 2010. Owen Pallett explains:

"The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum. The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator."

"The album was compositionally modeled upon the principles of electronic music. The principles of analog synthesis informing symphonic writing, like an inversion of a Tomita record. These songs, too, were designed to be as dense with polyphony as the Final Fantasy live shows can become. While writing it, I kept an image in my head of putting so many notes on the page that the paper turned black."

"This record encapsulates a whole year of work for me, and was difficult to see through, but immensely proud of the results. I hope you enjoy it."

Work began in earnest in November 2008, when Pallett and Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara flew to Reykjavik to work at The Greenhouse, Valgeir Siggurdsson's studio (Björk's Medulla, Bonnie "Prince" Billy's The Letting Go) with engineer Mio Þórrison at the board. The orchestra was recorded January 2009, in Prague, with the Czech Symphony. Other guests include Matt Smith (Nifty), Reg Vermue (Gentleman Reg) and Nico Muhly. Rusty Santos, who produced Animal Collective's Sung Tongs and mixed Panda Bear's Person Pitch, was taken on as mixer.

He and Owen worked together in Toronto and New York over the summer of 2009 putting the finishing touches on Heartland.

Heartland tracklist:
1. Midnight Directives
2. Keep The Dog Quiet
3. Mount Alpentine
4. Red Sun No. 5
5. Lewis Takes Action
6. The Great Elsewhere
7. Oh Heartland, Up Yours!
8. Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
9. Flare Gun
10. E Is For Estranged
11. Tryst With Mephistopheles
12. What Do You Think Will Happen Now?

Heartland will be available on CD (WIGCD252), LP (WIGLP252) and digitally (WIG252D).

On tour with The Mountain Goats:
04/11/2009 USA Grand Rapids, MI (Ladies Literary Club - Calvin College)
05/11/2009 USA Chicago, IL (The Metro
06/11/2009 USA Madison, WI (High Noon Saloon)
07/11/2009 USA Minneapolis, MN (Cedar Cultural Centre)
10/11/2009 USA Seattle, WA (The Showbox)
11/11/2009 USA Portland, OR (The Wonder Ballroom)
14/11/2009 USA San Francisco, CA (The Fillmore)
15/11/2009 USA Los Angeles, CA (Henry Fonda Theatre)
18/11/2009 USA Austin, TX (Antone's)
19/11/2009 USA Dallas, TX (Granada Theater)
20/11/2009 USA Nashville, TN (Mercy Lounge)
21/11/2009 USA Atlanta, GA (The Variety Playhouse)
23/11/2009 USA Orlando, FL (The Social)
24/11/2009 USA St. Augustine, FL (Cafe Eleven)
27/11/2009 USA Washington, DC (9:30 Club)
28/11/2009 USA Philadelphia, PA (Theater of Living Arts)
29/11/2009 USA Boston, MA (Wilbur Theater)
01/12/2009 USA New York, NY (Webster Hall)
02/12/2009 USA Brooklyn, NY (The Bell House)

Final Fantasy will be returning to the UK and Europe for more shows in 2010.

Pitchfork claims it's a concept album and it does seem likely doesn't it! Also very cool Jeremy has been helping out with the percussion. Januari 11 can't come soon enough! I've said it before and I'll say it again: 2010 > 2009.

Volcano Choir - Island, IS

Strangely captivating video to a lovely song. Lifted off their debut record Unmap. Volcano Choir is of course the side project of the extremely talented Justin Vernon, more commonly known as Bon Iver.

[MP3] Volcano Choir - Island, IS (via JAGJAGUWAR)

www.myspace.com/VolcanoChoir

Bell Orchestre: Live at La Tulipe, Montreal

Download this wonderful Bell Orchestre show at La Tulipe in Montreal (April 19, 2009) which is now streaming over at CBC Radio 2.

01 Bucephalus Bouncing Ball
02 Air Lines/Land Lines
03 Dark Lights
04 Icicles/Bicycles
05 Water/Light/Shifts
07 The Gaze

Bell Orchestre - 2009-04-19 - La Tulipe, Montreal, QC [MP3].zip

Stream "No Cars Go (Jason Forrest Remix)"

As previously reported Merge Records are releasing a remix album on November 17th they've named Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Remixes. Now the full album is streaming over at their website. Most excitingly for me was of course listening to Jason Forrest's absolutely brilliant remix of "No Cars Go" by Arcade Fire. Form yourselves an opinion on it right here.

Love this remix to tiny tiny pieces! Dark but at the same time fun and playful.

Bell Orchestre visits FlyTV

Nico & Richard

Oy, you lucky Toronto people. Don't miss this!

Nico’s Choice
Thursday, Oct 29, 2009
8:00 PM
Koerner Hall
Genre: Pop, Classical: Orchestra


Nico Muhly and Richard Reed Parry with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Edwin Outwater, conductor He's composing for an opera (for the MET), writing film scores (for The Reader ) and working with rock's most engaging musicians (Bjork, Grizzly Bear, Antony and the Johnsons)... all at the ripe age of 27! Meet Nico, hear some of his favourite music, and meet his friend Richard Reed Perry (from Arcade Fire), who is composing a new piece specially for the KWS.

The Royal Conservatory: Nico's Choice

Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Remixes

I'm dead tired so just going to quote Pitchfork on this one. Hope the remix of No Cars Go is a cracker!

That picture above is the cover of Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Remixes. The idea behind the compilation is simple: Artists-- Merge and non-Merge alike-- remix songs that have come out on Merge during the past two decades. So we get Jason Forrest tweaking the Arcade Fire's "No Cars Go", John McEntire of Tortoise and the Sea and Cake remixing Spoon's "The Ghost of You Lingers", Caribou reworking Polvo's "Kalgon", and the Junior Boys working their magic on Lambchop's "The Nashville Parent". Four Tet, Xiu Xiu, and the Blow also contribute remixes. The tracklist is below.


Like the Merge 20th anniversary covers compilation, The Remixes is part of Merge's Score! subscription box set. But also like The Covers, you'll be able to buy The Remixes even if you didn't have the foresight to subscribe to the Score! series. The compilation is due on November 17, and it'll be available on both digital download and limited edition CD. As with everything else in the Score! series, proceeds from The Remixes will go to benefit the charities listed here.


Score! 20 Years of Merge: The Remixes:


01 Polvo: "Kalgon (Caribou Remix)"
02 Pram: "Mother of Pearl (Barbara Morgenstern Remix)"
03 Guv'ner: "Baby's Way Cruel (Four Tet Remix)"
04 Portastatic: "Drill Me (The Blow's I Was So There Remix)"
05 Spoon: "The Ghost of You Lingers (John McEntire Remix)"
06 Arcade Fire: "No Cars Go (Jason Forrest Remix)"
07 The 6ths: "Volcana! (Xiu Xiu's I Hope Your Train Crashes Remix)"
08 The Rosebuds: "Bow to the Middle (+/- Remix)"
09 Caribou: "Irene (Hands Off Cuba Remix)"
10 The Magnetic Fields: "Washington DC (Mark Robinson Remix)"
11 Lambchop: "The Nashville Parent (Junior Boys Remix)"

Pitchfork: Merge Announce Remix Comp Details

St. Vincent - Marrow

Like, I can't even pretend to be cool about it... *swoon to the nth degree!*

Mac McCaughan covers 7 Kettles

Footage of Mac McCaughan covering "Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)" has made it's way to youtube. He's ofcourse a founding member of Superchunk and to that co-founder of Merge Records, Arcade Fire's record label, together with Laura Ballance who's sitting next to him.

Pretty good acoustic cover. This song was part of their session at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC in support of "Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records" which you can read more about here. Their book actually tells among lots of other things some behind-the-scenes stories about Arcade Fire. The purchase genes immediately starts twitching... Might be worth buying.

Waiting is pain. Pain is waiting.

That people was Arcade Fire... Enough said.

The new Arcade Fire Store officially launched

As I told you guys earlier Arcade Fire has launched their new online store. Today it was officially announced with an e-mail being sent out to all fans who have signed up to receive updates from Arcade Fire. Check your inboxes! A pretty cool offer was presented as well.

Arcade Fire's New Online Store!

Arcade Fire is happy to announce the launch of the new Online Store. To show our appreciation for signing up to our online store newsletter, we are offering you a 15% discount at checkout, excluding PIH charity items. Just enter the promotional code MIROIRNOIR at checkout to receive this special offer (valid until October 31, 2009). Feel free to share and forward this code to your friends. Also check out the Partners in Health charity bundle on the store.

More info and stuff in the newsletter.
Let the spending spree begin by jumping over to the Arcade Fire Store.

Sunset Rubdown - Black Swan

Savage song. It can ofcourse be found on their latest album Dragonslayer. Highly recommended!

Interview with Bell Orchestre

Bell Orchestre this last weekend kicked off their shortish European tour by playing at the Electric Picnic festival in Ireland. RTÉ 2fm was on site to catch up with Sarah, Mike and Richard from the band. There's a little Arcade Fire update towards the end as well.

He was really good to work with!

Haha! A really really thorough answer there Sarah. Brilliant. As to the Arcade Fire bit there it pretty much confirms what I wrote on here the other day. Don't expect anything to be released this year.

Fine poetry by Owen Pallett

In what I believe is a response to Wayne Coyne's continued bullshitting about Arcade Fire, their old touring crew and whatnot Owen Pallett, aka Final Fantasy, came up with this stinging poem.

Win
You drink too much gin
You're never gonna win
Seven deadly sins
My cat's name is Lynn.

Regine
You're a teen dream
You look so serene
But I'm not so keen
On your touring machine.

Relax
Take a load of your backs
The future of music
Is confetti machines
And CD backing tracks.

Ouuuuch, Coyne! Ouch! Needless to say I love the last last three lines. The sarcasm detector is just going haywire. But not only that, the amount of CD backing tracks used by The Flaming Lips is nothing short of embarrassing for a band which easily could afford to have some people doing all that live.

Thanks Owen for brighten up an otherwise cloudy day.

Online store redesigned!

Arcade Fire have redesigned their online store. So jump over to www.arcadefirestore.com and check it out. Looks pretty slick and most definitely much more user friendly. This will no doubt cause someone out there to go all "OMGZ! OMG! NEW ALBUM OUT ANY SECOND!!", you know, the usual crap. Should that happen and rumours starts flying... Well, just chill. Bell Orchestre have, as I said in an earlier post (although in Swedish back then), set out to tour the west coast in the US as late as in November which in all likelihood rules out any potential release date on this side of the new year.

- How 'bout a new hoodie, Joel?
- You're so clever, Joel!

Silver Starling at Osheaga Festival

Ghosts


Love & A Broken Heart

Great to see Marika so prominent. The self-titled album is out September 22nd. Look out for it.

Bye Swedish! Hello Canadaish!

Thought I'd give it a go to see how it turns out. There are many reasons behind the change, but the one thing that really stands out is the fact most things written about Arcade Fire are in English and I've always felt kinda weird about mixing Swedish and English in my posts. Hope you fellow Swedes out there don't mind too much. xx joel