Chad VanGaalen is a wildly talented artist, illustrator and animator from Calgary. And on June 13th, Sub Pop Records has the very great privilege of releasing Chad’s new full-length record, Diaper Island, on CD (round, small-ish), LP (also round, bigger) and digitally (invisible) in the UK (following the US release last month).
Anyway, here's the video for single Peace On The Rise, which was made by himself, following on from Never Enough made for labelmate J. Mascis, who he may or may not be friends with.
And, because he is something of an overachiever, Chad drew a series of items into the video for you to find and, having found them all, enter yourself for the chance to win a totally awesome Chad VanGaalen prize pack which will include a copy of Diaper Island on both CD and limited edition green vinyl (only 300 pressed) as well as a shirt hand drawn by Chad himself. Full details are at http://diaper-island.com/.
With this new album, Chad has distilled his approach, producing his most sonically cohesive album to date, and the closest thing he has done to a rock album. As with all of his albums, Chad is single-handedly responsible for all of the artistic efforts that went into Diaper Island from album art to music videos and everything in between. The new video is ample supporting evidence for the “wildly talented” claim above. Peace on the Rise and is available as a free download via Sub Pop @ SoundCloud, as is also the previously released Sara (below).
And the man himself comes over on tour to the UK in August. Here are the relevant dates and places;
August:
- 16 - London, Cargo
- 17 - Leeds, Brudenell
- 18 - Glasgow, Captain's Rest
- 19 - Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete's
Sources: Sub Pop, Drowned in Sound and SoundCloud