Soft Airplane
Chad VanGaalen’s musical roots date back to the first part of the decade, when he made a living busking on the streets of Calgary. He is also an accomplished animator and illustrator whose music is very much informed by his appreciation of visual arts. He has produced a voluminous wealth of material, by himself, at a rate that might best be described as alarming. And whatever his motivation for doing what he does, or creating what he creates, the result is that it is always both genuine and good. The proof is in the songs themselves. They have heart. They have pain. They have hope. They have humor. And most importantly, they have fun. Recorded on a Tascam 4-track and other analog devices, using synthesizers, guitars and a collection of his own handmade instruments, Chad’s first two LPs, Infiniheart (2005) and Skelliconnection (2006), were wildly eclectic and ethereal, texturally imaginative, sometimes ambitious and sometimes restrained. Recorded primarily on an old tape machine and a JVC ghetto blaster in Chad’s Calgary basement, Soft Airplane retains the handmade charm and singular character of his previous records, while incorporating new layers of sophistication and weight. Recalling Neil Young at his most fragile and plaintive, and Thurston Moore at his most resolved and vital, Chad’s emotive vocals anchor these songs while tackling the pervasive themes of death and dreams with an unexpected air of certainty and hope that is far from ominous—-instead it’s luminous. Through a complex interplay of guitar, drum beats, loops, samples, found sounds, unorthodox percussion, xylophones, distortion, synthesizers, accordions and more, Chad has made an album that sounds bigger than one man. It sounds like a lifetime.
After two releases mined from years of home recordings, Calgary songsmith Chad VanGaalen gathers a handful of songs recorded around the same time, in the same place, and unsurprisingly he finally attains a uniformity of sound and theme that can hold his gorgeously fractured songs together.
Chad VanGaalen sounds a bit like a schizophrenic son of his fellow Canadian Neil Young. VanGaalen's past collections, cobbled together from hundreds of songs written years apart, jarringly leapfrogged styles and themes—it sounded like he needed meds. Settling into his Calgary basement to pen Soft Airplane gave…
From Stevie Wonder and Todd Rundgren to Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, self-sufficiency in recording...
Recorded in the two years following Skelliconnection using low fidelity equipment, specifically, a rustic tape deck and old JVC boom box, Chad VanGaalen's third record is as complex as ever, with all the bells and whistles (sometimes literally) that excessive overdubbing can provide.
Chad VanGaalen -- illustrator, animator, songwriter, home recorder -- is every DIY purist's dream.