Chad VanGaalen
Infiniheart
Flemish Eye
For 10 years Chad VanGaalen recorded songs in his basement, then upstart Calgary label Flemish Eye compiled enough to fit on a CD. Response has been good — VanGaalen just signed to Sub Pop and is presently touring the USA (he plays the Halifax Pop Explosion on October 13). Infiniheart is a mostly heartbreaking album sprinkled with strange and quirky scenarios, a county fair of mysterious rides through the songwriter’s mind. This recording is what fellow Western Canadian singer songwriter Neil Young might have produced had he been born after 1980. VanGaalen sings with that same semi-falsetto style as Young, and though more folk than rock, his music also shares an ability to impress an aural landscape on the listener.
—Colin MacKenzie