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Island

by Owen Pallett

supported by
Stephen Savage
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Stephen Savage Island is OP taking his style and themes, melting them down and forging them into dark, lustrous obsidian. Moody and eerie, stark and yet... enticing. Favorite track: Fire-Mare.
cryin' Branston
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cryin' Branston Jesus, Owen. <3 Favorite track: Transformer.
Mr_Neffets
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Mr_Neffets This is a grower. At first, I thought most songs were too slow and stagnant, but repeated listens made me notice how immaculate the arrangements were, and I can't name another album that quite nails down this kind of gorgeous sparseness. It's not afraid of these silent pauses between phrases, but then you also get that wonderful, more full layering like on the chorus of A Bloody Morning. One of my favorites of the year for sure. Favorite track: Perseverance Of The Saints.
Dominic Vine of the Owls
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Dominic Vine of the Owls i've cried almost every time i've heard this song. almost every time i've talked or thought about it. i love how he recorded this album five years ago and it feels like zeitgeist.
"Owen, are you there? How i wish you could end this Nightmare... we could be Angels... instead of This Bullshit." Favorite track: Fire-Mare (version).
butterflytsunami
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butterflytsunami I don't even possess the words to aptly describe the awesomeness of this song. Wow. Wow. It moves me on every single level.

Wow. Favorite track: Fire-Mare.
David Knights Cowling
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David Knights Cowling There are acoustic guitars and they are welcome. There are beautiful words, they are welcome, too. Favorite track: Fire-Mare.
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1.
---> (i) 03:05
2.
Transformer 03:54
Every time I sing, you say that I’m gas-lighting, falsifying a private Thermidor Your love was a warm wind, and me an empty sail, I collapse to the kitchen floor When I wish I was never born My mother tells me I wasn’t born so much as excreted But this emptiness is a gift I’m free to write the future, an empty man undefeated I think I’ve found the cure: Make sure to live a quarter of your waking life in the present And the rest I’ll spend remembering Scorching our feet on the sand and tires of our bikes on wet cement We were sparklers in the night, and even now your resting face cannot conceal the light Your love was a warm wind, as the world you left, it falls away, and an island rises into sight
3.
Rage up the street a dog on a leash Men try to corner me to get a piece You don’t need to ask, you got it wrong Child of a broken home can love anyone And the unblinking eye that keeps track of our shit It will look to the left when kids get lit My muscles softened since I washed up here And I traded the scythe for a cig and a bottle of beer. In the hollow distance A man tries to be kind The mainlander boy pays for the bath They let you spend the night if you crash And radiator drone, Sister Faith and Sister Chance Children of broken homes, we will dance And I face the ocean, pray for change Freedom and loneliness, one and the same I will pray in secret, says the scripture And facing the ocean I silently whisper In the hollow distance A man tries to be kind Godkiller’s alive Godkiller’s alive
4.
---> (ii) 00:23
5.
Oh, I dream of starships, starships and the void The faces of the prophets history destroyed But I will live forever, of this I am sure I’ll bury my lovers, I am the cure My body is wider and stronger than collapsing buildings And I will see the graves, I will see the graves of your children Woke up in an ambulance, beaten and bleeding The sound of the engines, oh, I am a wound un-healing When I was a user, my arms were all in splinters But out here in the snowy fields, I am the winter My coat falls open and I let you in The Great White Noise will be your undoing A left to the heavens and a right, a right to the jaw The chorus of the angels, and I fall Woke up in an ambulance, blue-fingered and freezing The sound of the engines, oh, I am a wound un-healing
6.
I wake up in the night, my body is paralyzed Mind is running reckless, colours are all alive All across my eyelids, the silence of the spheres What manner of evil would think it engineered? Still, I left my friends and family pastured Boarded a ship to spread the news When I started to feel like I believed in a lie I climbed up a mountain to get my dues Nobody wanted him dead Nobody wanted him dead Cargo on the jetty knocks me out of reverie It is only in my lover’s arms that I can ever sleep In regeneration, we will all persevere Sun across our bodies, how long we been lying here? Memory is what makes you older You hold on to memory like a mother-hoarder And time gets quick as you administrate All the leavings of the passing years And I pull your arms around me I pull your arms around me Did I pick you up so I could feel again Like the boy who had the eye of every man? I pull your arms around me I pull your arms around me
7.
Polar Vortex 02:57
If I wake before the sun rises I remember stories old Told to me by my mother’s voice As the sky it turns from blue to gold She told me of the day she learned That madness is man, oh Madness is a man among us, oh And she let the madness in Like any other man I have a code And hold my friends to higher standards But out on Ellen’s Quay a new crop of kids Every year with louder voices Trying to reach them is like sewing up a geyser ‘Cause madness is a man, oh Madness is a man among us, oh They will let the madness in And then there are those who can make time stop Crush the future into present Your job your house your family Turn to dust in an instant And a single word from your lover’s voice Says madness is a man, oh Madness is a man among us, oh You will let the madness in
8.
---> (iii) 00:52
9.
Started drinking on the job And the job became easy Keep my hands upon the wheel and eyes to the sea Our two-masted yellow schooner seemed to need some course correction And it may have looked suspicious, but the sun was on my shoulders And my ginger hair Lady Virtue's Lace is bowing in the wind And I slouch in my chair, thinking, "Who gives a shit about them? When did they ever give a shit about me?" All around my lower ribs Spider veins are forming I've mistaken self-indulgence for self-care But do not be scared Surely some disaster will descend and equalize us A crisis Will unify the godless and the fearless and the righteous I am knocked to the hull As the schooner hits a reef beneath the surface And we list and I fall And the passengers are tumbling over railing, overboard and into sea And yet And yet In a certain slant of light the feeling will hit me Like a man against the waves and a violent wind Waking up in a bloody morning With the warmth of his forgiveness around me The shared dream left me shaking The memory is threatening to capsize every ship upon the sea And upon the surf the passengers are scrambling and swimming And my vision is unsteady and my head is scribbling scribbling And the next is a blur I am crawling through the waves to reach a woman Saint Christopher! An underwater starscape, an escape, I cannot swim, I cannot swim In a certain slant of light the feeling will hit me Like a man against the waves and a violent wind Waking up in a bloody morning With the warmth of his forgiveness around me The shared dream left me shaking The memory is threatening to capsize every ship upon the sea
10.
Fire-Mare 04:19
Oh, I never learned how to hate I never learned how to be hated Can it be controlled? Can anything be controlled? It hurts like a cancer in me But in every room I still can feel his ghost Blood rushing around us Like a herd of phantom horses I will burn every place that we entered And I will burn away this hatred within me And when I sleep I will dream about a dove on the wind I’ll dream about a child And the words I would say to his father and mother Owen are you there? End this nightmare I’m in Rush to my arms in the morning And meet me out on the same platform How badly I wish for it That we can be angels and not this bullshit And I will burn every place that we entered And I will burn away this hatred within me We had no future And if I was in love it had no story Love it will forget, love has already And if I was in love now I am nothing I’ll dream about a dove on the wind I’ll dream about a child And the words I would say to his father and mother Oh, I never learned how to hate I never learned how to be hated Can it be controlled? Can anything be controlled? It hurts like a cancer in me But in every room I still can feel his ghost Blood rushing around us Like a herd of phantom horses
11.
Then I thought I saw a totem Mounted on my northern bedroom wall It sparked and lit the walls of my home And my body rises like a stone When I regain my consciousness it’s crawling up the spine There’s something in my now that it not mine It touches nervous system crystalline Glowing abdomen to fingers I am the vine My back snaps like a rubber band, my arms bound in embrace With a ten-foot tele-vista and his hands upon my face Fucked into space, fucked into space Then I thought I saw the rooftops Disappear beneath my feet And I wonder who will sing of me when I am gone? As my body rises like a stone My back snaps like a rubber band, my arms bound in embrace I got a ten-mile tele-vista with his hands across my face Fucked into space, fucked into space
12.
---> (iv) 03:37
13.
In Darkness 06:27
A satellite mistaken for a planet A planet for a satellite Let me be your anchorite The lonely only need to look up into the light With lungs that breathe together soundlessly Hold together fast, hold tight You don’t need, don’t need, don’t need to die to be forgiven You don’t need, don’t need, don’t need to be a slave to your desiring Let me be your anchorite, floating above the sea Let me be your confessor Lay your burdens down on me You don’t need, don’t need, don’t need to die to be forgiven You don’t need, don’t need, don’t need to be a slave to your desiring
14.
15.

credits

released May 22, 2020

CREDITS:

OWEN PALLETT - vocals, acoustic guitars, piano, viola
NICK FRASER - drum kit (2, 11)
GREG FOX - drum kit (9)
THOM GILL - electric and acoustic guitar (14, 15)
BRAM GIELEN - upright bass (14, 15)
JOHNNY SPENCE - piano, synthesizers (14, 15)
STEVEN FOSTER - drum kit (14, 15)

Recorded by OWEN PALLETT at various locations in Los Angeles, Montreal and Toronto.

Vocals were recorded by PAT DILLETT at Reservoir in New York City.

NICK FRASER’s drums were recorded by JEFF McMURRICH at 6 Nassau in Toronto.

GREG FOX’s drums were recorded by SHAHZAD ISMAILY at Figure 8 in New York City.

Bonus tracks, 14-15, were recorded by JEFF McMURRICH at his studio in Toronto.

Strings were performed by THE LONDON CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA, and recorded at Abbey Road Studio 2 by ANDREW DUDMAN, and conducted by ROBERT AMES

Winds, brass and percussion were performed by the ST. KITTS’ CHAMBER ORCHESTRA and recorded by OWEN PALLETT; LEONIE WALL flute; LIEF MOSBAUGH oboe; JAMES ORMSTON clarinet; MICAJAH STURGESS and PIETRO AMATO French horns; LINA ALLEMANO and MICHAEL FEDYSHYN trumpets; MEGAN HODGE trombone; JEN STEPHEN tuba; OWEN PALLETT celeste; ED REIFEL percussion; KRISTEN THERIAULT harp.

Produced, arranged, and written by OWEN PALLETT, except track 9, written by OWEN PALLETT and GREG FOX.

Mixed by PAT DILLETT at Reservoir in New York City, except tracks 14 and 15, mixed by OWEN PALLETT.

Mastered by JOAO CARVALHO at Revolution in Toronto.

Cover photo by JEFF BIERK.

Art direction and interior photography by JEREMY LAING.

Design by COLIN BERGH.

Management by WAYNE PETTI at Straight & Narrow Artist Management. Bookings by SUSANNE HERRNDORF at Puschen (EU) and STEVEN HIMMELFARB at Feldman Agency (rest of world).

Thanks to MATT SMITH, ROBBIE GORDON and NOAH GIFFIN. Thanks to MARILIS CARDINAL. Thanks to KRIS GILLESPIE, LAURENCE BELL and the rest of the Domino team. Thanks to JUSTIN WEST and the rest of the Secret City Team.

Special thanks to VIDAL WU.

Thanks to PATRICK BORJAL, YUULA BENIVOLSKI, JEREMY LAING, SARAH GREGG MILLMAN, STEVEN KADO, JUDY MILLER SILVERMAN, PAUL AUCOIN, EVAN WINDOM, MARK LAWSON, JOHN DARNIELLE, THOM GILL, QUEER SONGBOOK ORCHESTRA, ARCADE FIRE and their team, FRANK OCEAN and his team, SAM RAY and KATHRYN BECKWITH RAY, MATTHEW OTTO, RACHEL LEVY, BRENDAN FLANAGAN, MIA STETIC, MAGGIE MACDONALD, KEVIN HEGGE, STEPH COMILANG, THOMAS BARTLETT, NICO MUHLY, MOM and NICK, DAD and CATHERINE, my siblings, and all other friends and family.

2020, Domino Recording Co Ltd

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