Joshua Van Tassel // The Recently Beautiful LP [COLOR / BLACK]

This is a record released in November 2023 by neoclassical artist Joshua Van Tassel from Nova Scotia, Canada, on the Canadian ambient label Backward in a limited edition of 11 copies.

This is a non-alcoholic auditory nightcap work created as a lullaby for adults.

Contains 13 tear-jerking neoclassical ambient songs for viola, violin, and piano. DL code included. 

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Includes DL code. Available on 12" black (edition of 150) or 12" orange vinyl (edition of 150). 

Tracklist:

1. You Could Be Anywhere 02:29
2. Blown Clean Through 01:35
3. When Will You Be You 02:14
4. Smiles Displaced 02:22 video
5. Once You've Gone 02:42
6. Three More Tears 01:34
7. Unity Rain 01:06
8. Find It Again 02:30
9. Song for Robbie 02:22
10. At Least You Tried 01:45
11. Song for Sam 02:11
12. We'd Leave Together 01:44
13. We See The Same Moons 02:55

Backward Music:

"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."

Artist: Joshua Van Tassel

Label: Backward Music