Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home (Tomlab)

“They say heartbreak is good for the skin / but all that it’s helped is my drinking”

Heavens, what vision is this? Another darkly beautiful lone young man with a darkly beautiful singing voice? One can never have too many, I find. I for one require a steady supply to prevent me from tossing in my sleep.

I suspect Mr Owen Pallett, for Final Fantasy is he, would wince at being thrown into bed with the more earnest likes of Mr Wainwright Junior, the late Mr Drake, or Mr Antony and his tap-dancing Johnsons. Not to decry the importance of being earnest (I do apologise), but Mr Pallett’s world is more one of ghostly, bed-ridden, string-heavy chamber-pop with a playful, Canada Dry sense of humour. According to his website, Mr P chose his project name partly because he loves the game Final Fantasy, but mainly because ‘Owen Pallett’ sounds too much like a character from Little Britain’s Only Gay In The Village sketches.

With his reputation as the Toronto music scene’s chief violinist-for-rent, Mr Pallett was last seen touring the world with The Arcade Fire as both AF player and support act. Audiences were entranced by the sight of this solitary Canuck choirboy singing, bowing, plucking, sawing and scraping his violin aqainst looped samples. It’s hard to look a fool with a fiddle. I’m reminded of that decorative cliché – When Rock Bands Recruit String Sections. The Manics playing ‘A Design For Life’ on TV, dressing down with their own clothes but dressing the song up with a miming string section. Even the original version of the most recorded Beatles song, Yesterday, is dominated by a string section. When it comes to the serious hits, the strings have it. In which case, why not sack the band and let the string section write the songs?

Maybe that’s one reason why the Final Fantasy album is so instantly classic-sounding, yet still tangential and clandestine. Unexpected shifts in time signature and complex song structures keep the attention rapt. Never quite syrupy easy listening, nor unsettlingly experimental, Mr P’s startling songs are steeped in hooks; whether sweet and winning (‘The Dream Of Win & Regime’ ), or baleful and ominous (‘The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead’ ). Polite dabs of instrumentation enter the mix from time to time, but it’s the gorgeous, Michael-Nyman-esque baroque riffs that swoop and soar, drive and pound, lilt and lull each song along.

Though there’s a certain rawness to the production, the voices and violins seem incapable of rawness themselves. It’s this conflict – the polished recorded without polish – which gives the album its curious and uniquely enticing edge. It’s compounded by the contrast of salty lyrics delivered so sweetly. “Don’t let your cock do all the work”, he coos on ‘Please Please Please’ in deceptively fragile, many-layered, golden harmonies. His voice is weary but immaculate, as classical and refined as his instrumentation.

Gaming in-jokes and Canada-specific references abound, but are no hindrance to enjoying this universally endearing record; just as one needn’t understand Fox Network jibes to enjoy The Simpsons. Not when a tune as dreamy as ‘The Chronicles Of Sarnia’ aches to be to be swum in, to be lost in, to be found in. It’s the kind of intensely personal record that the listener can find their own personal way into – and feel curiously at home.

Striking and remarkable, Has A Good Home is a gently singular triumph by a gently singular gentleman. May he be sidelined no longer.