Preview
TRILOBITES TRANSFORMED TO WOOD LICE (INSIDE EQUALS OUTSIDE)
Chad Van Gaalen
Wednesday, April 2
TRUCK Gallery
So how do you find out about a guy who spends most of his time indoors, locked up and working alone? A guy who has gone undetected on the periphery, candidly conspiring with a short list of percussionists, jazz authoritarians, pianists, ex-girlfriends and misanthropes – an A-list of other unbeknownst inevitable voices?
How do you find out about this guy if he doesn’t play traditional venues, and is not attaching himself to the rock fantasy of being famous and getting the big label jumpsuit fitted for the future? How do you unearth this guy and his crowd of neo-pranksters if they don’t want to be dug up and brought out?
I guess you don’t. I guess it happens like it always happens, and with as much bang as it can when it decides for itself that the time has come. So, I guess we can take the recent appearances and projects popping up for local artist and musician Chad Van Gaalen as a sign – he must have recently decided that it’s time to come out and play.
Van Gaalen has made his mark in a short time, with a brief but impressive list of achievements: Quickdraw Animation Society has awarded him a three-year scholarship to facilitate the making of a feature-length animation. His music, with main conspirator Eric Hamelin (under the pot-induced moniker Wooln’ ipples), caught the eye and ear of local composer Kenneth Doren, which in turn sparked a series of live shows with the out-of-sight Nach Hause concert series. And in regards to his art practice, Van Gaalen is currently preparing Trilobites Transformed to Wood Lice (Inside Equals Outside), a performance piece for the Mountain Standard Time performance art festival. On top of all of this, Van Gaalen has local label Catch and Release interested in distributing his latest 28-track solo CD, Infiniheart.
At the age of 25, few people can boast about having accumulated as much recorded material as Van Gaalen has. He has composed, produced, preformed and recorded more than 600 albums, 250 of which are solo efforts. His latest undertaking, Infiniheart, comes off as a mixed variant of his many styles. The recording is a good example of what Van Gaalen has been focusing on lately – everything from experimental documentary tracks to much more complex, super-sweet pop songs.
With his convincingly angelic a cappella voice, he delivers fragile honest waxings, with the same depth and passion as any wise old six-stringed survivalist. Delivered from a bewildered perspective, some of these songs are almost honest to a fault – so emotionally exposed that after I listen to them, I feel a bit grossed out. Chad has described his songs as being more like diary entries than regular pop songs.
"And for the most part," he says, "Infiniheart is just another break-up album, in a long line of break-up albums."
Listening to it, I am surprised by the variation of instruments and the many layers these accoutrements lend to the overall composition of the songs. This diversity in instrumentation has come from Chad building his own flutes, marimbas, harps, horns and a violin.
"I’m trying to tap into the ultimate root – trying to build it up from there," he says. "Breaking music down to understand it from its origins – from the creation of the instrument, to learning how to play the instrument, to writing songs and making compositions for that instrument and eventually (having) that instrument accompany other instruments that I have built."
Another huge element to Van Gaalen’s music is his straight-off-the-floor approach to recording. He has recorded absolutely everything he’s played in the last five years. Always watchful, waiting for everything to align itself and for the universe to get its shit together, Van Gaalen twists knobs, sets microphones and prepares the stage. He enters into the moment – the fine line between the knowing and feeling – when improvisation happens.
Van Gaalen has been in hiding, kept up for a few years, and now he’s come out of the hole, interested in talking and hashing it out. He brings with him some relics, goods, thoughts and stories, and I, at the end of our conversation, recognized that this is just the beginning of something – the real story has yet to be written. |
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