I doubt many were expecting a contender for album of the year to drop eleven days into it's passage, but Owen Pallett's Heartland (available for streaming via Domino Records @ Soundcloud) is just that, and more- a lush, triumphant emergence from the chrysalis courtesy of the baroque pop movement's most prescient instrumentalist. (The above free listen comes highly encouraged; "Lewis Takes Action" and "Tryst With Mephistopheles" are album standouts.)

While I take delight in Pallett's decision to perform under his own name, abandoning his copyright-infringing Final Fantasy moniker to stronger stand as truthful and stark an artist as he's always been, it's been kind of a motherfucker coordinating my iTunes folder of late- see, the obsessive compulsive ID tagger in me wants to lump his catalog all together for simple access, while the neurotic album completist in me knows I just can't go changing history like that.

Ownal Fiwen Pallantasy Fantlett it is, then.

Pallantasy Fantlett hits the northeast in Spring, Apr 20th in Boston (@ the Institute of Contemporary Art), Apr 22nd in New York (@ Webster Hall), and Apr 25th in Philadelphia (@ First Unitarian Church).

Below, two danceable treatments of our man from Ontario: under-the-radar mash hero Tor (the fella responsible for last year's Sufjan Stevens Illinoize mashup project) spins '08s "The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead" alongside a classic Q-Tip plea for industry sanity, and Leicestershire's Simon Bookish explores the balance between drive and flourish in his arrangement of Heartland's "Keep the Dog Quiet".

Tor "The CN Tower Can Work It Out" (Final Fantasy Feat. Q-Tip)

Owen Pallett "Keep The Dog Quiet" (Simon Bookish Remix)