Heartland

After an initial listen, I used the word "overwhelming" to describe my experience. Owen Pallett's recent Final Fantasy trip Heartland is thickly sutured with tightly stirred flute flumes and vivid lumbering cello grumbles. It's layered, and zany but structured seamlessly: poignant, pensive piano massages and angelic soaring violin saws, richly peppered percussive shakes and taps and that lullaby-ing falsetto-to-honeyed serenade from the voice of the man himself...

...it's damned dizzying. You lose yourself ("Flare Gun" into "E is for Estranged") on some orchestral odyssey like you yourself our rushing on and off stage in this rousing ballet of intricate choreography, drama-building quieting refrains that tip-toe towards the edge and then string stabbing drum pummeling crescendos that send you into a grinning hypnotic spasm of pirouettes back towards the painted-on tree tops of the boomlit backdrop. This all crackles and slides under Pallett's pretty and plaintive voice that blends the earthy fading prairie poetics of Sufjan ("...carry me away from the croft / ruffle my hair, bear my body aloft...") through the often-noted Morrissey-esque operatics of his disarming and delicate voice.

Who doesn't want to go on a leaf-peeping Autumn road trip to the buoyant beauty of "Tryst with Mephistopheles"?

Listen: Owen Pallett - "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt"

This marked the veritable end of Final Fantasy - all forthcoming releases will be simply under Owen Pallett.

More info from Domino

Watch "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt"