chad vangaalen is a cool cat. he’s like a young bob pollard. actually he’s really nothing like uncle bob except that they both have a penchant for recording on 4 tracks or other random analog equipment and crafting strangely hummable pop songs. case in point, chad’s new record, soft airplane, was recorded primarily on an old tape machine and a jvc ghetto blaster or at least thats what subpop would lead you to believe. either way, he’s kinda all over the map not so much in styles but in instrumentation and is very reminiscent of the early elephant 6 days of elf power, olivia tremor control, nmh, the music tapes, etc. i have really really dug his past records, infiniheart and skelliconnection and judging by the first single off soft airplane i am sure my fanboy status will keep on, keepin on.
willow tree off soft airplane
echo train off infiniheart
flower gardens off skelliconnection
btw, sub pop and flemish eye are also offering a bonus limited edition cd-r featuring three songs, including a new track and two 1-man-band versions of songs from soft airplane to anyone who pre-orders the album by september 9th.
molten light
Good post.