Calgary singer-songwriter
Chad VanGaalen specializes in quirky bedroom pop, a style which earned his 2008 album
Soft Airplane a short-list nod for this year’s
Polaris Prize. But as fans know, his albums also feature twisted instrumental set-pieces and bizarre stylistic left-turns.
Soft Airplane ended with “Frozen Energon,” which was nearly four minutes of guitar feedback, pulsing synth noise and directionless drum pounding. “JC’s Head on the Cross,” which appeared on his debut,
Infiniheart, was a similarly wonky instrumental, with barely-in-tune guitar plucking and a stuttering electro beats.
On previous albums, such moments were oddball interludes; on
Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz, released under the moniker
Black Mold, they’re the main attraction. The album is entirely instrumental, and there’s nothing here that remotely approaches a structured pop song. Rather, nearly every track features glitchy drum loops and squelching, buzzy synthesizers. Even melody is hard to come by, with “Dr. Snouth” being made up of nothing more than R2-D2-style blips and bleeps.
The fact that VanGaalen chose to release the collection under the alias
Black Mold, rather than use his own name, is indication enough that this is more of a self-indulgent experiment than it is an attempt to recreate the magic of his previous albums. Still, it has plenty of moments of prettiness, from the purring clarinet of “Metal Spider Webs” to the meandering keyboard leads of “Wet Ferns.”
mp3: “Metal Spider Webs”
The album isn’t likely to appeal to the same
CBC Radio 3 crowd that voted “Willow Tree” the “future classic” of 2009. Still, as a document of a restless artist at his most unhinged, it’s well worth a listen.
Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz is out now via
Flemish Eye.
