First Night of Summer & Peace Museum Vol. 1
Self-Released
Released on June 20th & July 1st, 2025
Chad VanGaalen is a gentle giant; soft spoken, kind-hearted, and also nearly a full foot taller than me. That height difference was the first thing I noticed when I saw him play a show in Edmonton sometime in the early aughts and later reinforced when I found myself driving him and his band to a festival several years ago. His music then, as now, was incredibly dense. He specializes in home recordings full of pastoral folk songs underpinned by reverb, static, feedback drones and found sounds from repurposed or handmade instruments and reclaimed objects.
Chad is one of the most wildly creative and prolific people I have ever had the chance to meet. More than 20 years after the release of Infiniheart and with a catalogue of 7 ‘official’ full-length records released by Flemish Eye in Canada and Sub Pop internationally and at least 20 online-only or Bandcamp exclusive albums in addition to countless side projects, aliases and alter-egos, Chad VanGaalen returned this summer with two new self-released records. The first is from his latest alter-ego “Full Moon Bummer” and the second was released under his own name and features his long-time backing bandmembers Ryan Bourne and Chris Dadge.
First Night of Summer is the third release under the Full Moon Bummer alias and was released as a Bandcamp exclusive on June 20th. It sounds slightly more developed than previous albums in the series. Gone are the quiet studio soundscapes, live cuts and experiments involving people in Chad’s inner circle (like his former bandmate, Preoccupations’ Scott “Monty” Munro on Vol. 1 & his daughter Esme on Vol. 2). Instead, First Night of Summer feels like a new statement of purpose, an album that feels worthy of taking on the road after a few years of self-releasing home recordings, making art, and being a dad outside of the public eye. And yet, this is exactly what the previous albums in the series were - a collection of home recordings, with every sound made by Chad himself. It’s an archetypal CVG record, complete with off-kilter percussion, pitch shifts, tape manipulation, and subtle layers adding colour and a sort of warped beauty in unexpected places.
I can’t remember the last time Chad started an album with a ripper like “Let Love In”, probably not since 2006’s brilliant “Flower Gardens” from Skeilliconnection. Multitracked vocals, fuzzy guitars, a driving beat, and a true ear worm of a chorus. Next, “Thee Chorus” slows down the pace, settling into a gorgeous, dreamy acoustic strum-along with a hazy organ drone that almost sounds like Spiritualized circa 1997.
The middle of the album contains my favourite 3 songs – “Heavy Metal Violence”, the short instrumental “Baby Puke” and “Ants In A Line”, which I haven’t been able to get out of my head for the two weeks I’ve been working on these reviews.
“Travelling Plant” is the platonic ideal of an album closer. It feels like a campfire singalong – “sing a song before it’s gone” which later shifts subtly to “before you’re gone.” These lyrics transport me back to my childhood at summer camp, coming up with simple 3-chord melodies to play, the long days and cool nights that seem endless but vanish in the blink of an eye. The additional slightly off-time instrumentation (especially percussion - is that a xylophone?!) add extra texture to an otherwise simple, beautiful song.
Peace Museum
Peace Museum is a different story altogether. Self-released on Bandcamp on July 1st and labelled Volume 1, Chad promoted this album as a collection of songs, jams and experiments recorded at his Peace Museum in Calgary. The record is broken into two distinct halves. Side one has the songs, side two the jams.
There is a heaviness to the first four tracks, lending a sense of cognitive dissonance when one considers the title. Unless Peace Museum is meant to signify that peace is something to be relegated to the past rather than something to be put on display for all to embrace, this simply is not a peaceful record, either sonically or lyrically.
“Plant Attack” is a horror movie that unfolds in 2:30, gruesome imagery of poison and dismemberment. “What Do You Know Now” continues with similar lyrical themes of poison and toxicity, though musically feels like it was ripped out of Neil Young’s ditch trilogy.
The incredible, early Ween-like synth and drum machine freakout “Aggressive Dancing” signals that the second half of the album is going to go someplace very different than the first. “Improv 2” is almost formless; atonal horn bleats, ghostly percussion and drones that gradually coalesce into… well, not much, but for whatever reason I’ve spent more time with this track than any other on the album. Ryan Bourne’s bass and Chris Dadge's drums lock into a steady, free jazz rhythm. It’s not in the pocket, I couldn’t tell you the time signature if I tried, and by the end of the track it sounds like they’re right on the edge of falling completely into deep space, but somehow it comes together.
The few intentional seconds of silence prior to the perfectly named “Space Butter” doesn’t adequately prepare the listener for yet another experiment with synth music. It becomes an almost downtempo, ambient techno track by the end. It is a challenging listen, and if you’re only familiar with Chad’s more guitar-focused output from the first 15 years of his career, a track like “Space Butter” will be somewhat jarring. If you’ve been following his career and know some of the more obscure, online-only releases like the NTH series, you’ll be floored by how far he’s come with electronic composition.
The final track, Improv 5 is another organic rather than electronic composition. It has a similar feel to Improv 2, but it is an entirely different track. More of an ambient drone than jazz, it Dadge’s carefully controlled cymbal work and Chad’s horns and synths threaten to overwhelm, building and building and then… nothing. Dead stop. It’s a jarring effect, all build and no peak, the perfect way to hook a listener into the anticipation of Volume 2, whenever that may come.
I’d like to say, “welcome back, Chad”, but the reality is that he never left. He’s been making incredible music all this time. A gentle giant somehow hiding in plain sight.