Owen Pallett Looks Back on Les Mouches Ahead of the Group's Upcoming Re-Release

Photo Courtesy of Orchid Tapes

Most musicians have humble beginnings they’d like to forget. Tori Amos had big, Aquanet-supported hair as the singer in Y Kant Tori Read. Haim provided the theme for a Trollz cartoon as the Valli Girls. Trent Reznor was far from an intense, industrial dude when he played synths for the new romantic act Exotic Birds. And Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig was an Ivy League rapper called L’Homme Run. Owen Pallett’s beginning wasn’t exactly humbling: He played in an avant-garde pop group called Les Mouches. And unlike all those previously mentioned musicians who either blush or turn over a table when their past is brought up, Pallett is still very much in love with his old band.

Featuring Pallett on violin and vocals, Matt Smith on guitar and Rob Gordon on drums, Les Mouches were part of the now-defunct Toronto indie label, Blocks Recording Club. Founded in 2003 by local impresario Steve Kado, Blocks went on to release a number of significant Canadian recordings by the likes of SS Cardiacs, Creeping Nobodies, Fucked Up, Bob Wiseman, Katie Stelmanis (Austra), Nadja, and the Barcelona Pavilion. Pallett was a major component in the Blocks co-operative, originally helping out with the hand assembly of each release, and eventually becoming a board member (he also famously donated a good chunk of his Polaris Music Prize money to Blocks in 2006). But the label also gave a home to Pallett’s creative output, namely a band with his friends Gordon and Smith called Les Mouches, and a subsequent solo project he called Final Fantasy.

The first Les Mouches release, 2002’s The Polite Album, was recorded at Andy Magoffin’s House of Miracles in Cambridge, Ontario. Despite that, Pallett later described it as “a shitty album”—only 20 copies were handed out on CD-R. But for their 2003 follow-up, Les Mouches teamed up with Blocks for a CD EP called Blood Orgy!!!, followed by a full-length the next year. Upon its release, You're Worth More To Me Than 1000 Christians didn’t exactly flourish like some of the other records Pallett worked on. Around the same time he played on the Hidden Cameras’ debut, The Smell Of Our Own, Jim Guthrie’s Now More Than Ever, Royal City’s Little Heart’s Ease, Gentleman Reg’s Darby & Joan, and Arcade Fire’s Funeral.

But _You're Worth More To Me Than 1000 _Christians__ stands out because this album marks a starting point for Pallett as a songwriter. Of course, he would take full control of that responsibility the following year with Final Fantasy’s debut, Has A Good Home, but with Les Mouches he cut his teeth. That said, this was very much a three-person band. As intrinsic as Pallett’s strings and voice were, the same should be argued for Smith’s enchantingly melodic guitar swells and Gordon’s unruly and volatile drum fills. There is some remarkable chemistry at work among the three—it’s no wonder they united to conceive Pallett’s most recent solo album, 2014’sIn Conflict. This summer, Brooklyn imprint Orchid Tapes is reissuing You're Worth More To Me Than 1000 Christians on vinyl for the first time, remastered and with new artwork. Noisey spoke with Pallett, as well as Warren Hildebrand from Orchid Tapes about why it was time for Les Mouches to be reintroduced to the world again.

Noisey: You have accomplished so much since Les Mouches released You're Worth More To Me Than 1000 Christians in 2004. How does it feel to revisit this album?

Owen Pallett

: I’m ecstatic. The new master sounds incredible, the songs sound better than I remember, and all three of us are super proud to go back to it.

You recently said in an interview that before this album, you didn’t really take the process of making an album seriously. What was it about this one that made you take a more disciplined approach to your music?
It’s like layers of an onion, learning how. Every album for me feels like the first one, like, “oh, now we’re gonna get it right!” But this was the first album where I felt that there was a unified aesthetic, that we were making music worth people’s time and money, and so we took it seriously upon its release.

Any particular memories that come to mind from recording the album with Rob, Matt, and Jeff McMurrich?
We recorded the whole thing in three days, along with the Blood Orgy!!! EP. Sixteen tracks in three days. We did it in a house on Dupont Street that would be torn down and replaced by a Shoppers Drug Mart a few months later. I don’t remember much of the interpersonal dynamic, but I remember recording all the weird overdubs like the vibraphones on “Daddy Needs A Daddy.” and holding my head very still in front of the stereo vocal microphones so my placement didn’t drift.

Where did the idea come from to reissue it?
Orchid Tapes approached me. Warren, who runs the label, had got it as a teenager and told me the record meant a lot to him, and he wanted to press it to vinyl. Blocks had nothing to do with the reissue, except for the fact that the record had never been pressed to vinyl, and it should’ve been—it’s a great sounding album.

What made you take it to Orchid Tapes instead of say, Domino and Secret City, the labels that release your solo music?

I love the Orchid Tapes aesthetic. I feel that it is a continuation of many of the things I loved about Blocks—a strong community, a commitment to equality, and strong politic. I like all the differences, too, like Orchid Tapes’ commitment to small-run releases, and its emphasis on visual aesthetic and quality of packaging. I love all the bands on it, all the people involved. I hadn’t had an interest in re-issuing any of my pre-Final Fantasy material until Warren suggested it, and so all I had to do was ask my other labels for permission, and they all love Orchid Tapes, so we went forward.

On Facebook you posted that the remastering made the record sound different to you. How so?

The dynamics have been adjusted so that they’re less dramatic. This is usually a bad thing, but in the case of

1,000 Christians

, some of the songs disappeared into near-silence. The drums punch harder, it’s a more modern master. Also, Warren expanded out the songs to keep in the extended intros and outros, so the album sprawls a little longer, which was a great idea. The mood is more effectively created.

Brian Vu’s artwork is stunning. What made you decide to let him redo the artwork?
Initially, we’d talked about keeping some of the motifs of my original artwork—the pink and brown coloring, the lions, or the drawings of Anne Murray on the back. But I love Brian’s own aesthetic, and told him he should follow his own bliss. The final idea was his. He froze flowers overnight and then photographed them as the ice melted. The only holdover from the original artwork is the pink on the back.

You began Final Fantasy a few years after Les Mouches. How much was your own solo work inspired by your band?
Final Fantasy was playing shows at the same time as Les Mouches. Its existence was in fact a factor of Les Mouches’ slow dissolve. Robbie was busy with From Fiction, and Matt with Nifty. We were all drifting apart and found that it was an uphill battle getting shows booked. We never actually officially broke up until eight months after our last show, when we realized we’d all moved on. Originally, my solo work was lyrically in the same vein as Les Mouches, but with fewer “shockahs.” But my nascent romance had taken over my lyrical voice and I found myself writing love songs instead. That sure passed.

You recorded and toured In Conflict with Rob Gordon and Matt Smith. How much nostalgia for the good old days was involved in that decision?
There was no nostalgia, because we’ve all been so closely involved in each other’s lives. Matt and Robbie have continued to make music together in various capacities, and Matt and I as well—Matt engineered several of my solo records. My decision to recruit them as my backing band came out of personal dynamics. Matt and Robbie and I are all very, very close friends, and we never get on each other’s’ tits. Matt didn’t even own a bass when I asked him—I had to buy him one and ask him to learn it. I always prioritize good tour energy over musicianship!

As a kid who grew up in the Toronto area, I’m sure you may have been aware of Les Mouches. What relationship do you have with this period of Owen’s music?

Warren Hildebrand:

At the time that I became aware of Owen’s music I was living just outside of Toronto and was going to high school in Oakville. There wasn’t a lot going on there musically or otherwise, I was taking the GO train into the city really often to see lots of all-ages shows. It was around that time that I found out about Owen’s solo music, I think by reading an article about the Hidden Cameras, who I was really into and were really popular with the group of people I was in with in high school.

At the time I would do a lot of digging for projects and bands that were associated with the stuff that I was listening to, and I think it was through this process that I found out about the Les Mouches album some time in 2006 and got it from a private torrent site or something similar. It really blew me away when I heard it and quickly became one of my favorite records though and I think it was responsible for informing a lot of my tastes and decisions I would later make with my own music.

Who approached who to release this? Where did the idea come from for the reissue?
I think I brought up the idea, we had been talking about the album and listening to it a bit on tour because my bandmate Emily and boyfriend Brian who were with us had never heard it. But I think the idea for Orchid Tapes to reissue it just arose naturally in conversation one day based on the fact that the band and myself were still such fans of the record, that it had never gotten a proper vinyl treatment and that everyone was into Orchid Tapes overall aesthetic and how it could potentially tie into the album.

What did it mean for you to reissue this album?
It means a lot, being able to help put together a new release for an album that’s been so important to me for so long is so crazy and cool to me. I think that it’s something that fits in with the label and the things we’ve already released in a really specific way, and being able to work with everyone on it has just been so easy and enjoyable.

Cam Lindsay is a writer based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter.