VANDEN DOOL
BIO
The dry, suburban prairie landscape of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada is not an immediately obvious candidate for the birthplace of someone in a genre as inherently metropolitan as synth-pop. Nor would you expect the sounds of CHVRCHES, Depeche Mode and M83 to cut through the noise of hard rock, country and heavy metal. Yet, this happened with Ty Vanden Dool, who has left his own personal stamp on the genre for over a decade and taken it with him up to his new home in Calgary.
Vanden Dool’s latest output is a new EP, I Don’t Know if You Can Love Me. Following his pattern of focusing on a single theme, with 2023’s Poverty and Pop Culture on the high life and its unattainability and 2020’s The View from
Here EP on life in Lethbridge, I Don’t Know if You Can Love Me simply focuses on love and the seemingly incurable pain that arises when it is unrequited.
With help partly from a recording crew at MacEwan University’s Artist in Residence program in Edmonton but mostly from the humble home setup of long-time friend Tristan Smetana in Calgary, the tracks jump from the dark, clublike “I Want Your World”, to the single “Not What You Want” with its energetic rhythm section, to the slow waltz-like closer “When I Can See You”. Despite each track’s differences, they are unified in being an unmistakable reflection of Vanden Dool’s tastes.
I Don’t Know if You Can Love Me continues Vanden Dool’s stylistic evolution from the overtly 1980s-influenced 2019 debut self-titled album to the more modern alternative influences of Poverty and Pop Culture. He has played stages across Canada, most notably an opening spot for Montreal artist Thierry Larose; made Earshot chart appearances on various community radio stations including the national electronic top ten; received press for his layered and highly intentional production and arrangement; and found airplay on CBC Radio and Calgarian alternative
rock station X92.9.
I Don’t Know if You Can Love Me is now available on all major streaming platforms. Tune in and dance to an aching heart.
Photo credit: Micky Jane Gilchrist