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Since his 2004 debut album of bedroom recordings – the now legendary “Infiniheart” – Chad VanGaalen has been a restless and limitless creative force. It’s been three long years since his last studio album “Light Information”, and fans are hungry to finally see a full-length follow-up. 2020 was a terrible year for gardening.
It was terrible for peppers, it was terrible for tomatoes, it was terrible for the condition of the soul. But Chad somehow raised a garden all the same: carrots and sprouts and broccoli and a revivifying new album, all of them grown at home. He likes to eat directly off the plant, he says – “I get down on my knees and graze. It’s nice to feel the vegetables in your face” – and the 13 songs on “World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener” were harvested with just such a spirit: in their raw state, young and vegetal, at the very moment, they were made. The songwriter’s new album is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favor of freshness and immediacy – capturing the world while recording alone at home over a period of years.
Throughout these 40 minutes, VanGaalen floats from mania to solace to oblivion, searching for zen in all the wrong places.