Category: Joshua Van Tassel

Languid melodies weave in and out of piano figures, a lush but minimal sound. The music billows out in an organic way, phrase leading to phrase, one long vibrating note spilling into the next without the guardrails of rhythm or measure. That’s maybe a surprise when you consider that Joshua van Tassell is a drummer by trade. His solo work, however, is lithe and open-ended, a nocturnal conversation between piano and strings.

Toronto percussionist and composer Joshua Van Tassel follows up his 2018 album/novella hybrid Crossworlds with “Their Love Was Alive Before They Were Dead.” It’s the first music from September’s Dance Music Volume II: More Songs For Slow Motion, a slow-motion dream built around the Ondea, an updated version of the famous French synthesizer the Ondes Martenot.