Released October 19, Flemish Eye Records.
Hermits. Not the crabs, the people, though it’s debatable which taste nicer. Have they had the right idea all along? Do we really need to leave our homes when we can do everything from the comfort and safety of our favourite computer desk swivel chairs? If there wasn’t the need for money to pay the cursed bills and help contribute taxes towards a vasectomy for everyone’s favourite PM, I’d rather fancy a crack at the hermit life.
E4 has a pretty strong daytime line-up, which helps, but in the quieter moments (2-6pm) there would always be the chance to do what you really wanted. I’m not talking about puzzles or finishing that Lego Death Star (though I really SHOULD get round to that), I mean the creative art which lies deep within each and every one of us. Although Lego really is an unappreciated art. Enter Chad VanGaalen, Canadian instead of Dutch, who rarely leaves his basement in Calgary, Alberta, also known for being the wrestling capital of the world. What does Chad do? Why, he draws, makes art, and records music. I’d like to do that, but I have no artistic or musical bones in my body, though I used to be able to draw pretty good Bart Simpson faces.
Chad must be doing something right, as he has made and released three albums, and now under his Black Mold alias, he releases another. His work under his own name has been indie folk fare, but this album, cryptically called Snow Blindness is Crystal Antz, is multi-instrumental, intriguing, and flat out weird. Take the opening track, 'Metal Spider Webs', for instance. An eerie opening, followed by a cello, clarinet and xylophone which relaxes, and then synths which hallucinate and transform like shapeshifters on acid. If the mark of a good song is how well you remember it days later, then this is a good song. I found myself whistling the clarinet part for a few minutes before realising what it was.
Then again, we also remember the more annoying songs, but this song is no Cheeky Girls. I doubt their puny motor skills would be able to comprehend what is on offer here. How their tiny heads would explode at 'Dr Snouth', a glitchy, random collection of noises, which doesn’t sound dissimilar to my Commodore 64 right before it died. A strange turn of events.
The delightfully named 'Uke Puke' is in fact an enchanting piece of work, a glorious melody with the right amount of computerized funk to carry it along. As with many tracks on the album, it’s over before you have the chance to discover where it could really go. 'Toxic Lake' should be the music to a Commodore 64 shoot em-up, it’s got that nostalgic feel to it, and the computer game feel is evident throughout. It perhaps gets too weird at the end, disintegrating into meandering when there was a kind of structure evident before. 'Tetra Pack Heads' has moments of genius over a bubbling, deformed backing, and again would be ideal game fodder. It’s like Tetris on speed.
'Rotten Walls' would the theme to Link entering a dungeon, to Mario entering a subterranean pipe world, so mysterious and menacing it tries to sound. But just before you can get into it, it ends abruptly. Boo hiss. Instead of leading to epic boss battle music, it transforms into 'Memes', the musical equivalent of Alice falling down the rabbit hole, and landing on the moon. Once the frankly annoying beeping subsides, it’s a decent enough sounding track.
'Fuck eBay' is another collection of glitches and split-second devices, which intrigues, but probably not in the way you want it to. It is pulsating though. 'Wet Ferns' is a more relaxed, NES Link walking around the village jaunt, before the synths take it space age, which perhaps isn’t needed. For some reason, this is the song Chad decided to make the longest on the album, clocking in at a whopping 5:55. Why choose the song with the least ideas in it to be the longest? It’s befuddling to say the least. Granted, the spasmodic experiments shouldn’t be longer than they are, but extra time for the other tracks could give them more time to develop.
'Smoking Rat Shit' (I couldn’t make these names up if I tried) is one such spasmodic attempt, and while it sounds interesting to throw lots of noises at the wall, none of them stick. If these were eradicated from the album, it would generally be a lot better, and less headache inducing. If this song were nearly 6 minutes long, I would have killed someone after 3. 'Barn Swallow vs sk-1' (see?) is more balanced, but then what is balanced to Mr VanGaalen is demented to us semi-normal folk. This track just doesn’t seem to go anywhere, not even to Tescos for more Jaffa Cakes. 'Gummed Desk' is back to the Spectrum ZX sound that works the best, like exploring a forest in ancient Hyrule. Maybe it’s the geek in me, but these songs are the ones that appeal the most, as they at least have ambition. 'Virtual Prison 'has no real bite to it, and just drifts along at it’s own pace, and disappoints. 'No Dream Nation 'has a hip hop beat to it, and it is this beat that forms the track. While it’s not something Dizzee Rascal could rap over the top of, it’s probably as close to a commercial sound as you will find here, and the synth ending doesn’t fail to charm.
Sigh. 'Pristine Booble's opens with the mind numbing bleeping of a million calculators, but actually turns into something rather good. For about a minute. Then it’s back to the soul sapping, plinky plonk nonsense that blights this album like a plague. It does pick back up again towards the end, resembling something that could be a drum ‘n’ bass sample, but the damage is done. Title track 'Snow Blindness is Crystal Antz 'does have a genuinely interesting sound, the contrasts of noise really draw you in, and the guitar 3 minutes in makes it really special. Further evidence that guitars are essential in every song. Ever. It turns out like a pseudo-sequel to Space Oddity, which is no bad thing. 'Left Behind By The Digital Ships' could be something like the Game Over music to an RPG game, where the spiky haired hero sails off into the sunset with his dog and his sword, seeking challenges anew. Kind of. Again it’s over too quickly. 'Swimming To Food' is kind of like being lost in the woods and discovering a strange house, but one with a fence made of children’s bones. Which is a kind of sound that works. Last song 'Finally Someone Invented A Teleporter!' is perhaps seen as the exit music to this sci-fi experiment, though it fails to capture any sort of emotion or feeling.
Overall, there’s just too much to consider. So many different kinds of music, some that don’t deserve to be called music at all. If you look hard enough, there are moments of clarity, moments of almost wonder, but the effort of looking itself is hellishly difficult. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack whilst wearing a 90-year old man’s glasses. You may find it, you may even enjoy it, but you wouldn’t fancy doing it again any time soon. The drawbacks far outweigh the nodding of the head.
Posted In Album Reviews, Oct 15 2009.
Words - Paul