On the Polaris-nominated Soft Airplane, Calgary rocker Chad VanGaalen proved that electronica could break your heart. His side project, Black Mold, is the Batman to VanGaalen’s Bruce Wayne, an alter ego who fights the darkness with hand-built modular synths. His debut extends the glitchiness of Airplane’s “TMNT Mask,” building electronic experimentation through hand-plucked strings — take the spindly instrumentation of “Uke Puke,” with its blinking synthesizers that crest over the sounds of ocean waves and ukulele. While fans might lament the loss of VanGaalen’s usual pop structures (the cacophonous “Fuck eBay” is unlistenable for those not versed in trance music), Snow Blindness is a welcome foray into experimental territory. Like Wayne, VanGaalen knows that a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.