Chad VanGaalen: Recycling and Rebirth

Chad VanGaalen is a poster-child for recycling. The 30-year-old Canadian is a notorious homebody, forever tinkering away in the basement of his Calgary house. There, when not beavering away at, say, the three albums he’s released on Sub Pop, VanGaalen can be found tending to his collection of self-built instruments, which he’s fashioned from society’s refuse as part of an art-world-inspired, trash-as-treasure aesthetic.

VanGaalen's brand new album, Soft Airplane, is a lyrical study on death, which also makes it about recycling: the natural world's continuous loop of death, decomposition, and rebirth lingering in his often odd tales.

I recently interviewed Dr. VanGaalen, who discussed his days busking, his work with fellow Calgarians Women, and the influence of the lo-fi movement on his embrace of at-home practice and archaic tape-machines.

The self-styled songsmith's peculiar brand of ad-hoc pop is ripe for some free-like sampling at Sub Pop HQ, too. Whilst a legally-admissible MP3 of the sweetly banjo-pluckin' ode-to-dying "Willow Tree" is a fine score, those wishing to truly get a handle on VanGaalen's ways should open their eyes to the lurid video for "Molten Light." Animated by Chad himself, it serves as a direct, disturbing window onto the grotesqueries of the songsmith's subconscious.

Photo © [Marc Rimmer]