World's Most Stressed Out Gardener: An Interview with Chad VanGaalen & Show # 875

World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener is the follow up to Chad VanGaalen’s 2017 album Light Information. If we are counting the two outtake albums that were released in 2020 (Odds & Sods 2, Lost Harmonies), it is his ninth studio album. Released in March 2021, World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener is an eclectic collection of songs from VanGaalen. The music that he creates while it is sometimes folk, sometimes psychedelic, sometimes indie rock, sometimes strange, is really its own thing. The universe in which the songs of Chad VanGaalen belong is a strange, wonderful, kind of messed up, cosmic place at times. As we enter these worlds we find ourselves absorbed by the sounds and stories that he produces. World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener offers more variety musically than ever before on one of his albums, but still has the same feel of the best of Chad VanGaalen’s work.

“Spider’s Milk” starts off World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener. With a collection of guitar, drums, mesmerizing vocals and other sounds such as fuzz pedal and warm bass melodies, the song transports into a place of contemplation. With lyrics such as “And I don’t know how It goes/On and on,” VanGaalen seems to be questioning the existence of life itself as he juxtaposes the music with characters that “Lived on the spider’s milk all summer.” A little after the halfway point the music picks up the pace and propels itself at a faster pace as reverb drenched vocals fill the void before slowing back down again. A short instrumental track called “Flute Peace” comes in next featuring a collection of Eastern sounding instrumentation from flutes, drums and acts as a brief interlude before “Starlight”. This track starts off with whirling sounding synthesizers, what sounds like wind chimes and birds before heavy bass and drum patterns arrive. This kaleidoscopic track features a psychedelic kraut rock influence, as VanGaalen’s trademark multi-layered reverb loaded vocals get hazy and infiltrate this track. He questions with words throughout the song such as “We’ll keep moving around it/Until we find our way/It doesn’t make sense but it makes way,” “And the light that becomes us is just feeding on fate.” This track is an example of Chad VanGaalen’s songwriting abilities and how they differ greatly from others. “Where’s It All Going?” is a laid back, calming song. With its airy acoustic folk dynamics and eerie vocal inflections, it delves into existentialism as it also features a darker character driven narrative combined with self reflective inner thoughts. “Earth From A Distance” is a longer floating instrumental piece that features sweeping synthesizers and is very cinematic sounding. This song would not sound out of place in an episode of Twin Peaks or in 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick.

“Nightwaves” is a more upbeat garage track, featuring synthesizers and other Eastern sounds. The song lyrically scrolls into themes about the endless newsfeeds of social media and the emptiness that they induce. “Plant Music” is a lighter, yet still somehow disturbing instrumental track featuring stringed instruments, again dipping into the sonic spaces of Eastern music. “Nothing Is Strange” is an off kilter folk track in which VanGaalen’s voice is all warbly. Lyrically, with words such as “Turn up the radio I think we’re dead/And floating around like some ominous sound,” and “Don’t head to the hills when you hear the bells break/Cause there’s nothing you can do and there ain’t no escape,” VanGaalen portrays a dark, apocalyptic, end of the world setting in song. “Golden Pear” is another off kilter folk inspired track. With fuzzy guitar, field recording sounds, VanGaalen elicits an emotional response from the listener with surreal lyrics about a magical pear.

“Nightmare Scenario” is a feverish paranoid garage rock track that channels driving off beat rhythms about a character that is “Stressed out all the time when you should be feeling well,” that picks up at one point sounding influenced by Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul” before it trails off into another musical direction and world. “Samurai Sword” was the lead off single for World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener. This folk track is catchy and is about a missing sword and shows VanGaalen’s story telling abilities through song with words such as “It has a blade that has been tampered by the blood of the gods and a tiny little sticker of a dog,” and “Folded over a million times/By the lonely blacksmith that lives in the skies,” that in-between acoustic guitars and layered vocals, features VanGaalen playing copper plumbing pipes like a xylophone. The final track “Water Brother” transmits a neoclassical, cello heavy cinematic influence. Lyrically, the song ends the album in a haunting introspection with lyrics such as “Dear people/Are you satisfied with what became of all this chatter?” and “She was a healer of the spirit that lives in the water,” Chad VanGaalen ends World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener on a rich musical soundscape peppered with rhetorical questions reflecting what we could call a cosmic folk tale. Like his illustrations and animations, the songs that Chad VanGaalen creates capture a sense of something of the unknown, the otherworldly, visually and sonically. With World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener, Chad VanGaalen digs deep to show us a world that is dark, multifaceted and sonically captivating. 

Listen to Revolution Rock's interview with Chad VanGaalen:

Show 875 Playlist (Originally Aired On March 27th, 2021)(Chad VanGaalen Interview):

1.  TUNS - We Stand United
2.  Les Shirley - 23
3.  Painted Shrines - Not So Bad
4.  Clara O'Page - Wild Woman
5.  Willie Dunn - Son of the Sun
6.  Chad VanGaalen - Nightwaves
7.  Chad VanGaalen - Nightmare Scenario

CHAD VANGAALEN INTERVIEW PART ONE

8.  Chad VanGaalen - Samurai Sword
9.  Chad VanGaalen - Wind Driving Dogs

CHAD VANGAALEN INTERVIEW PART TWO

10. Chad VanGaalen - Mind Hijacker's Curse
11. Chad VanGaalen - Leaning On Bells
12. Chad VanGaalen - Nothing Is Strange
13. Serge Gainsbourg - Melody
14. Serge Gainsbourg - Ballade de Melody Nelson
15. Mike Krol - California
16. King Khan Unlimited - Bedwetter
17. The Cheetahs - The City Is Dead
18. Chang-A-Lang - Throwaway Litres
19. Trout - Easy Breezy
20. Kim Gray - Restless Legs
21. Knickers - Bored In The Supermarket
22. Kid Congo Powers & The Pink Monkey Birds -  Sean Delear
23. Chad VanGaalen - Where Are You?

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