The Recently Beautiful Joshua Van Tassel

• Joshua Van Tassel: You Could Be Anywhere:
• 1 Van Tassel: You Could Be Anywhere 02:30
• Blown Clean Through:
• 2 Van Tassel: Blown Clean Through 01:36
• When Will You Be You:
• 3 Van Tassel: When Will You Be You 02:14
• Smiles Displaced:
• 4 Van Tassel: Smiles Displaced 02:22
• Once You've Gone:
• 5 Van Tassel: Once You've Gone 02:43
• Three More Tears:
• 6 Van Tassel: Three More Tears 01:35
• Unity Rain:
• 7 Van Tassel: Unity Rain 01:06
• Find It Again:
• 8 Van Tassel: Find It Again 02:30
• Song for Robbie:
• 9 Van Tassel: Song for Robbie 02:23
• At Least You Tried:
• 10 Van Tassel: At Least You Tried 01:46
• Song for Sam:
• 11 Van Tassel: Song for Sam 02:11
• We'd Leave Together:
• 12 Van Tassel: We'd Leave Together 01:45
• We See The Same Moons:
• 13 Van Tassel: We See The Same Moons 02:55
• Total Runtime 27:36

Info for The Recently Beautiful

The ambient music upon which Joshua Van Tassel has built his reputation has often been pushed by large concepts: the life cycle of a giant squid, a sci-fi folk tale, a custom score for craniosacral therapy. Those compositions lean long, psychedelic, grandiose—music for the sonic intellectual.

For the follow-up to 2020’s Dance Music Volume II, he’s taken a new approach, smaller in scope without sacrificing focus: lullabies for adults, arranged for a quartet, written at night while the rest of his household slept, not a one crossing three minutes. The result is The Recently Beautiful, a collection of hushed dream fodder and gentle aural nightcaps.

“I wanted to feel the feeling of listening to really beautiful deep music, but for a really short time,” says Van Tassel, who wrote a song at the end of every night for nearly two months straight to arrive at these 13. “You can sink into that: that was a beautiful moment in my day. And you can have it again.”

Other than reverb added in post, what you hear is what was played, and captured—the mournful interplay of minor notes on “Blown Clean Through,” the climax and denouement of “Smiles Displaced,” the minute-long rainfall of “Unity Rain,” the symphonic lift of “We’d Leave Together,” crickets duetting with strings on “We See The Same Moons.”

Before he returned home to rural Nova Scotia with his young family, he recorded these songs in Toronto alongside Robbie Grunwald (piano) and Drew Jurecka (violin and viola), with Van Tassel on his trademark Ondea. “Robbie and I talked about playing slowly, quietly and consistently, but still have intention and intensity,” he says. “It’s so much harder than loud and fast. The difference between him pressing a key and not making any sound and pressing a key and making a sound—I’d say ‘That’s where you need to be, for the next 10 hours.’”

It was a process of distillation and instinct, a new approach by its maker, who wants listeners to turn to The Recently Beautiful at night to help them process the day via pleasing melodies, delivered with quiet grace.

“Sometimes,” he says, “it feels like there’s not a lot of places to find beautiful things and a place to live in that for a short amount of time.”

So he created one.

“an ambient weighted blanket we can’t wait to slip under” – CBC Music

“extremely atmospheric” – York Calling

“purposefully short and sweet” – Exclaim!

Joshua Van Tassel

Written, produced and mixed by Joshua Van Tassel
String arrangements by Drew Jurecka and Joshua Van Tassel

Recorded at Union Sound Company by Chris Stringer and Darren McGill
Additional recording by Drew Jurecka at Small Dog Studios and Joshua Van Tassel at Dream Date Studio
Mastered by Heather Kirby at Kirby's Dreamland

Joshua Van Tassel
is a man of many hats. Born in rural Nova Scotia, he’s studied music across Canada with stints in his home province of Nova Scotia as well as Ontario and Alberta. Something of a musical chameleon, he’s acted in a supporting role for such diverse artists as Donovan Woods, Rose Cousins, Doug Paisley, Great Lake Swimmers, Royal Wood, and Justin Rutledge, among others. Joshua is also quickly becoming known as a go to producer, having made albums for David Myles, Gypsophilia, Christine Bougie, Megan Bonnell, and more.

With his solo career Van Tassel has a built a reputation as a producer and composer of electro-acoustic music that is both highly sophisticated and easily digestible. His music, which has been featured on the Outdoor Life Network’s program “Departures” and “Descending”, is a tapestry of traditions; the familiar plucking of folk music floats amongst drum machines and ambient field recordings, driving bass lines melt into flowing synth melodies. His albums has received critical acclaim from the CBC, The Toronto Star, NOW Magazine, and won East Coast Music Association and Music Nova Scotia awards for 'Electronic Album of the Year.'

“haunting...The alchemy is remarkable” - Toronto Star

“Come for the music, stay for the cyborg fish armies, giant gorillas and Daniel Craig. They all come to play in Joshua Van Tassel’s amazing new album Dream Date” - Laurie Brown, Host of CBC2′s The Signal

“Whether it is the Kid A-inspired sounds of Sneaky Beard or The Warmest Heart, Van Tassel’s uncluttered approach to making music is one that demands your attention.” - Ken Kelley, Music Nerd Chronicles

This album contains no booklet.