Owen Pallett
Oval Space | 21 May
Ambling up to a club mid-evening. The sun threatening to permeate a thoroughly miserable, seemingly unending cloudbank. We’re faced with a wash of cognitive dissonance. Clanking up the steps of the Oval Space before sunset feels wrong somehow, like we’re trespassing in an attempt to hop onto the gas terminals next door.
Having previously only spent long nights in here – long nights that mutate into longer mornings, into infernal afternoons, into evenings spiked through with shame, regret and self-loathing – hopped up on the loosening properties of six cans of Stella and the 4/4 heartbeat thud of house. Stepping in sober to a soundtrack that felt shockingly guitar heavy only added to the disquiet.
Happily, and luckily for you, dear reader, the possessor of both contemporary music’s floppiest fringe and one of it’s most gorgeous voices, Owen Pallett, flipped us out of our shared reverie with the gentlest of trods on a loop pedal. What followed was a stunning 90 minute waltz through a back catalogue that now bulges with brilliance, brims over with beauty. Backed by a drummer and guitarist, and drawing largely on material from his forthcoming In Conflict LP – with the occasional triumphant dip into cuts from 2010’s peerless Heartland and a smattering of tracks from the Final Fantasy days – Pallet’s set soared.
If In Conflict drags somewhat on record, feels a tad thin compared to its predecessor, its creator’s virtuoso command of the violin swirled in wild combinations with that voice, giving the material the oomph it needed. One of the principle pleasures of the night came from trying to work out just how those weirdly timeless melodies he tugs from his instrument combined so perfectly with the heavier-than-expected low-end-thud, how the delicate rose above and avoided a smothering, how the mind and the body met in harmony.
Songs like Tryst with Mephistopheles and The Great Elsewhere – songs that deserve to live on through the ages – stunned in this environment, made us ruefully regret those hours, days, weeks, we’ve wasted listening to anything that isn’t by Owen Pallett. A truly triumphant rendition of Lewis Takes off His Shirt sent us off down those club steps into the night beaming, elated, full of the joys of life. Stunning.
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Words: Josh Baines
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