Diaper Island, Chad VanGaalen‘s awesomely titled new LP, dropped yesterday, and to celebrate the milestone he created a video. Mind you, videos from Chad are typically far from the norm, featuring original cartoonish art that’s a bit demented in a way. This is, like the oddities in his music, a very, very good thing.

I really fell in love with the weirdness behind Chad VanGaalen‘s last album, Soft Airplane. Many songs had strange electronic bleeps and bloops that just stuck with you, and if they didn’t they featured VanGaalen’s vocals with his rapid vibrato. “Sara” is not like that. Not entirely, at least. Sure, it may have VanGaalen’s signature layered vocals, which certainly are unique, but the instrumentation is fairly minimal with pretty much just a guitar. “Sara” is an exceptional song, enticing both lyrically and musically. You’ll find yourself …

Creating a music video, in my opinion, should be about creating art. There are so many intricate elements that should go into a video that are so often left forgotten or, at least, unattended. First and foremost is the song itself — a video must compliment the art to which it is expanding from audio to video. Connecting the two is extremely important. Second is theme. The best videos have some storyline, vague or distinct. Or at least something visually interesting.

When I compiled my original Best Of 2008 list last December, it was a snow day. The sky dropped about a foot, maybe a foot and a half of fluffy white stuff and we lowly sub-compact drivers could go nowhere. Between ranking albums and locating album art, I took a stroll around town with my camera. The above image comes from that trek. Overall, I was pretty happy with last year’s list but, in revisiting all the albums from 2008, I now see quite a few …

B-sides are supposed to be throw-away tracks, the rejects that didn’t make the cut. But the majority of the tracks Chad VanGaalen classifies as such are worth much more than that nerdy kid picked last in 4th grade gym class.

Written by Fense
The animation in the video for “Molten Light” by Chad VanGaalen reminds me a lot of the animation signature of the late 80s and early 90s. You know the kind — gross for the sake of being gross; a sort of, well, faux art. There were plenty of bands from that era that slapped the crap on their album covers — Ugly Kid Joe and Big Black are a few that come to mind. But here, there’s a key “fortunate” element, and that is its …

Written by Fense
For some inane reason, listening to Soft Airplane by Chad VanGaalen reminds me of Michel Gondry’s follow up to one of my all-time favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. The movie in question is La Science des Rêves, better known here in the states as The Science of Sleep.