Bear My Body Aloft

Owen Pallett “Midnight Directives”

This is a brilliant composition, the sort of piece that is urgent in tone, yet reveals itself upon repeated listening. The melody swoops and soars, but its a rather chilly sort of bombast — it’s a drama of intense thought, not physicality. I find myself often rewinding and going back over that final climax in the vocal section, just before the instrumental resolution: “For a man can be bought, and a man can be sold / and the price of a hundred thousand unwatered souls…” In context, that bit sounds defiant, thrilling, and terrifying all at once.

Owen Pallett “Midnight Directives” (Max Tundra remix)

Max Tundra’s arrangement of “Midnight Directives” brings in standard Tundra elements — a frenetic pace, extremely bright synth tones, a nerdy sort of funk — but does little to alter the main vocal part, which carries the essence of the tune. In this way, it’s a matter of dressing up the song in a new outfit. This is a more relaxed “Midnight Directives,” a version that tosses out the drama that makes the original so compelling, but focuses on flattering the song’s truly exceptional melody.

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