Chad VanGaalen, Wolf Willow, and Shad
Chad VanGaalen
Full Moon Bummer // Flemish Eye
Little introduction to Chad VanGaalen is necessary, especially by this publication. He’s hardly a household name, but he is a household to anyone that has been paying attention to indie music for the last two decades. Widely revered amongst Canadian music fans, few will find disagreement with the garbage-picker turned multi-instrumentalist and his cacophony of tones.
Following the success of World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener earlier this year, Full Moon Bummer comes as a surprise release that arrived with little to no promotion or fanfare, but is sure to please loyal followers of the notorious recluse. An odds n’ sods album as it were, VanGaalen is not here to prove anything or convince you to listen to his music, instead, he gave us a few more tracks that may have slipped through the cracks in albums past. This is just a little bonus for those of us who have already stumbled down the rabbit hole.
After the release of WMSOG, VanGaalen admitted to culling a number of tracks that he felt were too stressed out. Perhaps those are the tracks that make up Full Moon Bummer. On the other hand, VanGaalen “[doesn’t] necessarily have any sort of thread that’s running through [his] curation of records,” so who’s to say what inspired this collection of songs. What’s clear is that VanGaalen likes making music and he wants to share it, despite his reclusive tendencies.
There is nothing left to prove. VanGaalen has innovated relentlessly for decades and established himself as a fixture of Canadian music. Doubters of his prowess have already had to eat their words once this year with the release of WMSOG. Full Moon Bummer isn’t here to win you over, it’s here to offer loyal fans a peek behind the curtain and see a little more of the timid troubadour. Just as the cover art exposes the most intimate parts of a person, VanGaalen gives us a more intimate look at the process behind his sound. This album has all the fixtures of his genius with some of the rock n’ roll twists that fueled his latest offerings. All the folksy charm and experimental chaos is here – these are hardly songs that should be ignored by VanGaalen fans, despite the humility of their quiet Bandcamp release.
Chad delights in happenstance and often includes it in his recordings, whether it be his kid interrupting a guitar take, or the strange and wonderful personality of his homemade instruments. Life’s daily quirks worm his way into VanGaalen’s ethos, and this loose collection of tracks and interludes feels like an extension of just that. What it lacks in cohesion, it makes it up with the pure celebration of music. With Full Moon Bummer, VanGaalen showed us a little more of his world, and we are better for it.
- Clay Geddert
Wolf Willow
Old Guitars & Shooting Stars // Grey Records
So Old Guitars & Shooting Stars by Wolf Willow was offered as a possible album for review. I wasn’t familiar with Wolf Willow, so I visited Bandcamp to listen to their newly released singles: “Does The Sun Know?” and “All I Can Say”. When I clicked play, I immediately felt as though I was listening to a soundtrack from a Quentin Tarantino movie! The songs lush, full and distant sounds drew me in, opening my mind to visualizing a time, a place and an atmosphere. Their music is so cinematic! As it turns out, my brain and ears weren’t deceiving me. After reading the band’s accomplishments, I learned the group provided the soundtrack for a Canadian Documentary - Caribou Eaters.
Old Guitars & Shooting Stars consists of 13 tracks, yes, I said 13! No, I’m not referring to the number’s forbidden usage as a floor number in a hotel. I’m referencing the fact that Wolf Willow didn’t say, okay, we have ten songs and that is enough for an album. The group put exactly the amount of songs THE ALBUM was asking for. The trek through this Countrypolitan album kicks off with a blistering instrumental that is reminiscent of Surf Music, but with their own blend of seasoning. I must take a step back and talk about the album’s third track, “Does The Sun Know?”. It is a heart warmingly poetic and romantic song written by Britt Muir and Etienne Soulore. Their lyrics, “Does the sun know that the moon wishes to see its own wishes?” and “Lovers kiss goodnight”, absolutely stirred my soul. I honestly sat there and pondered the depths of the line, “Lovers kiss goodnight.”. It’s amazing how three words can mean so much and it’s what I love about songwriting! Britt Muir’s vocals are both passionate and honest, and the other members of the band have mastered their craft. I mean come on, the album has congas, strings, horns, pedal steel and clear guitar tones with nowhere to hide but within its own dripping reverb! If that doesn’t sound like a good Friday night, well give me back my whiskey and get the hell out of my kitchen!
Old Guitars & Shooting Stars is extremely well produced, recorded and mixed. The songs possess wonderful warm textured layers that are rich and vivid. Wherever you believe music is drawn from by songwriters, Wolf Willow is tapped into that very place. Each member shares the same passion and voice in their music, making them one collective force, creating sensational music. If you want to take a trip back in time, but would rather do it from the comfort of your home, vehicle or sunroom, press play and be whisked to a time of comfort, ease and tranquility. Quentin, if you are reading this, you're welcome!
“Headphones. That’s the only way to listen to music. It’s all kinds of different emotions because you get real quiet and comfortable and just listen to it.” ~ Gregg Allamn
- Branton Langley
Shad
TAO // Secret City
Next up, we have the new release from Toronto Rapper Shad. Shad drops his beat-heavy effort, TAO, which will be Shad's 6th full-length record. As a fellow Toronto resident, lover of Canadian Hip-Hop, and a massive fan of Hip-Hop Evolution, I jumped at the chance to write this review on Shad's excellent new record for the Cups N Cakes Network. TAO delivers non-stop heat, using a diverse range of drum beats, instrumental tracks, and vocals that range from tight verses, choir-styled choruses, and spoken word excellence. Shad describes the inspiration for TAO as:
"...this image in my mind of a circle, but it's getting fragmented, and then the pieces start floating away from each other. And that felt to me like a picture of ourselves as individuals. Suppose you think of our humanity as one whole. In that case, there are all these different aspects of that, whether that's work, our relationship to the land, our relationship to the transcendent, our relationship to our bodies, or our inner child. That was on my mind for a while: What's happening to all these different dimensions of ourselves?"
TAO plays host to impressive cameo's most notable on the song "Storm" which delivers a heady swirl of '70s funk propulsion (courtesy of Toronto alt-rockers Jane's Party), soul-powered melodies (courtesy of fellow Toronto rapper Phoenix Pagliacci), and stream-of-consciousness spoken-word (from the former Poet Laureate of Canada, George Elliott Clarke). Shad describes how the inspiration for "Storm" came to him in a dream - "When I'm working on music, this happens a lot: I go to sleep, and I hear music, and I dream music," Shad says. "And this was a song I heard in a dream—the chorus and the groove. In my dream, I saw people dancing to this song in this small record store—it was some sort of obscure record, but this little community all knew it, and they loved it. The dream was a little bit ominous, too—it was stormy outside, and it felt like I was drunk, and everything was a little soft focus and wobbly. So I was trying to reconstruct that vibe."
While it's easy to interpret that dream as a desire for togetherness in the age of quarantine, TAO was written and recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic forced us into hiding. And yet, the events of the past year have only amplified the album's sense of currency and relevancy. As Shad notes, "COVID is almost not like a new situation—it just accelerated what was already happening in terms of isolation and precarity of work." But now that vaccines are allowing us to take our first steps back to the lives we once knew, TAO arrives right on time for a world that's ready to laugh, hug, and dance together again. The circle is complete.
- Earl D
