String Theory
The artful ambiguity of Owen Pallett—indie rock’s violin prodigy, pensive prince and court jester By Katrina Onstad
Bubble boy: Owen Pallett, a.k.a. Final Fantasy, plays
the Music Hall this month
Image credit: Jessica Eaton
The newly rented lair in a west-end warehouse is littered with stacks of books, DVDs and a Guitar Hero box. A Yamaha piano with Chopin sheet music leans against one wall. In the midst of it all sits Owen Pallett, the young man who is the one-man band known as Final Fantasy. The room’s collision of high and low art is an apt metaphor for Pallett himself: alternately self-serious and bone-dry funny. He sips single malt scotch and stretches his black-jeaned asparagus legs. “I’m a little wounded today,” he says, wincing at nothing.
One senses his wound—both a badge of artistic authenticity and a genuine measure of a young artist’s sensitivity—may be perpetually oozing. But this time, it’s caused by The New York Times Magazine, which a day earlier ran a feature on Pallett and the rise of the one-man band. There he was in a full-page photo: wary and wan, a microphone at his feet. There he was, the arriviste who has mattered to music scenesters in Toronto for years, now mattering to America’s paper of record. There he was, the 28-year-old pop violin genius who rescues string sections from soapy sentimentalism and lays them, raging and swollen, beneath the music of such critically beloved bands as Arcade Fire and Beirut; the prodigy from Milton who won the inaugural Polaris Prize for his second record, called—maybe hilariously, maybe not—He Poos Clouds.
The moment of ascension calcified in the Times both thrilled and deflated Pallett. He said he felt insecure all day when the issue arrived, displaying the classic condition of the musician burdened with “cred”: eager for success, and eager to deflect it.
After winning the 2006 Polaris Prize, Pallett gave away his $20,000 in winnings, rather than feel indebted to Rogers, the event’s corporate sponsor. His boyfriend’s student loans and various impoverished local musicians benefited from his anti- corporate bird-flipping. In fact, he miscalculated and gave away $22,000, but once he figured it out, he was too embarrassed to ask for the extra two grand back.
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