#12

Chad VanGaalen
Skelliconnection
(Sub Pop)

Apparently these songs are culled from multiple tapes recorded in the musician/animator/illustrator’s home and the intimacy is one of Skelliconnection’s greatest appeals. Broadly, it’s indie rock, but drilling down and separating the elements, you hear a truly distinct artist at play here. His ghostly vocals hang over most every track here casting a spell on most everything he tries. And nearly every type of pop music is represented: from power pop (“Burn 2 Ash”), to wimpy metal (“Flower Garden”), to minimalism (“Grubbbish”), to acoustic rock (“See-Thru-Skin”). It’s important to state that this isn’t a genre exercise. Rather, it’s a guy, probably with a large record collection, that likes to never paint the same picture twice.