By Molly Labenski
The Vancouver artist leans into her singer-songwriter roots, adding a dash of country twang to her lyrical storytelling.
Chad VanGaalen – World's Most Stressed Out Gardener
Alberta: Top 10 of 2021
by Christine Leonard
- Published on
Golden, gentle and reflective – this springtime release blossomed into a summer “Plant Music” sensation. VanGaalen’s solace powered neo-folk greenhouse is alive with jangling Django guitars, meandering melodies, and polyphonic harmonies. Shaded from the dry heat of reality he cultivates a lush starlit soundtrack. Humming along like a hive of happy hippie worker bees, the progressive beat farmer harvests lysergic and lyrical tracks infused with iridescent tambourines, exotic flutes, quirky percussion, and otherworldly themes.
Bo Burnham’s transcendent comedy special isn’t the only great piece of COVID-adjacent art titled Inside released this year. The indie-rock quintet’s latest opens and closes with the sounds of the 7pm clanging pots and pans that once heralded the essential workers, and many of the tracks find them grappling with introspective thoughts while trapped in a room – being stuck inside one’s own head being an even worse fate than the physical boundaries.
By Cam Delisle
The Sudbury duo’s latest album, Tears of Paint, is a coldwave ritual that pulses through synths and sculpture alike.
By Dust Cwaine
On his new album Blurring Time, the Montreal songwriter finds catharsis in harmony, memory, and hard-won self-acceptance.
