Inside the worried, pixel- splattered mind of Chad VanGaalen
Touring is tough, especially when you’re reveling in parenthood.
“I missed Halloween, so a huge thumbs down to that,” said Canadian indie- rock songwriter Chad VanGaalen, over the phone from his home in Calgary, Alberta. “All my beautiful friends and family are here, so I always feel a little bit gutted speeding away from that.”
VanGaalen, 39, has a new album to promote— his sixth for storied Seattle indie label Sub Pop— and touring is just part of the gig.
He comes to the Hi- Dive on Nov. 19 for his first North American jaunt in three years, which was preceded by 15 dates in Europe last month, to play songs from “Light Information,” released on Sept. 8.
The album is another expression of VanGaalen’s anxious, high- frequency mind, which has also produced a surfeit of psychedelic animation and artwork ( think cartoonish sci- fi meets squishy surrealism) that has been used in music videos for bands such as Shabazz Palaces and Black Mountain, as well as his own work.
VanGaalen’s analog- warm fingerprints are all over studio albums from hipster favorites Alvvays and Women, and the soundtrack to the Adult Swim show “Dream Corp LLC.” So perhaps it’s no surprise that the culmination of his hand- crafted, audiovisual obsessions also finally saw Chad VanGaalen.
the light of day this year.
“TARBOZ ( translated log of inhabitants),” is a bizarre, eye- popping animated film that has been streaming on Pitchfork TV since the first week of October— and that VanGaalen spent the better part of two years completing. He loves it, and hates it, because finishing it took so much time away from his day- to- day life.
“I’d be like, ‘ Sorry, I can’t go tobogganing, I’ve got to hatch this baby monster egg out of my garbage womb,’ ” VanGaalen said. “I’d show my kids what I was doing and they already knew that it wasn’t worth it. They’d be like, ‘ Jesus, dude, we’re drinking hot chocolate here.’ For somebody that has a daily existential crisis anyway, it was not good.”
Given his more familyoriented priorities, VanGaalen thinks the hookladen “Light Information” might be his last straightforward album for a while — or ever.
He’s more interested these days in tonal experiments such as the “Light Information” track “Prep Piano and 770” which, as the name implies, uses prepared piano ( in which a piano note is modified by placing an object between the strings) and his Korg 770 monosynth to create something more akin to Tibetan prayer bells as tickled by Vangelis.
“I definitely don’t want to call this album an exorcism, but I feel like I had been hanging on to or not dealing with a few realities for a while,” he said, citing the “terrifying” nature of parenthood and the recent death of his father. “I don’t want to push that on people, but I feel like there’s a few things that I sort of came to terms with.”
VanGaalen has always been reluctant to own his singular voice— a warbling, vulnerable, hypermelodic instrument that he often can’t stand listening to— and he’s even less interested in doing so in the future.
“I feel like it’s hard to maintain this when I’m out of my studio. It doesn’t represent me in my life much anymore,” he said. “We made a family Christmas album that I’m totally going to put on Bandcamp. That’s more who I am now. My life now is a lot more communal, so ‘ just me’ is over. Hopefully. And for the better.”