Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

"Paris 1919"

Final Fantasy covers John Cale

Photo By Frank YangFrank YangLate last month, Owen Pallett announced that he was shedding the “Final Fantasy” moniker with which he’d won the inaugural Polaris Prize-winning He Poos Clouds and would be releasing its long-awaited follow-up, Heartland, under his own somewhat less exciting but infinitely less copyright-infringing name.

And so I hope I’m not getting anyone in trouble by posting this recording under his old stage name, but it does date back to 2007, when “Final Fantasy” still shone from marquees around the city (well the Tranzac and Harbourfront Centre, at least) and this John Cale cover was a fixture of his live sets though this version comes, I believe, from his CBC Fuse session with Cadence Weapon. It was also just last month that I got a copy of Cale’s Paris 1919 on LP, so the selection of Pallett’s cover of the title track seems a logical choice to start off this new year/decade. Though really, both original and reinterpretation are beautiful works that don’t need any excuse to show off and share.

Heartland is out next Tuesday and Pallett has a show at the Mod Club that evening – The Guardian talks to him about his new record and the name change decision. Cale continues to produce and record and in March of this year, will perform Paris 1919 in its entirety with The Heritage Orchestra at the Southbank Centre in London. Oh, that would be a thing to see.

MP3: Final Fantasy – “Paris 1919”
Video: John Cale – “Paris 1919” (live)

By : Frank Yang at 10:11 am
Category: Chromewaves Radio

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RSS Feed for this post3 Responses.

  1. 1/10/10 7:02 am

     The Opening Acts » Blog Archive » The Great Miscellany - Please Don't Ever Leave My Side says:

    […] – Just a couple days after I wrote about Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett covering John Cale’s “1919″, Chromewaves wrote about the same thing. Great minds think alike, no?  Anyway, while my post included an mp3 of the original version, their post included an mp3 of Owen Pallett performing the song at a radio session. It’s not as good as the version featured in the YouTube clip, but it’s still worth checking out.  Grab it here. […]

  2. 1/11/10 11:19 pm

     Alicia says:

    This is one of my favorite covers ever. Thanks so much for reposting it!

  3. 1/11/10 11:20 pm

     Alicia says:

    (Er, I guess it was STG that posted it originally. Thank you anyway!)

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