Joshua Van Tassel

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I had a busy week recording drums at home which is at time really fun and rewarding, and at other times completely maddening and non sensical. Why is that some drums sound so perfect one day, then the next sound terrible even if they haven’t been tuned, are in the same room, under the same mic with the same human playing them? The more I record the more I realize I’m an infant when it comes to this stuff, and real engineers are geniuses. I bow down to you and your mystical powers.
I’m finishing up a really exciting project with David Myles early next week, and I think it’s some of the best music he’s made. Really happy to have been able to do lots of work on it in the living room. Also trying to finish up a few pieces I sort of half started but left alone to think about what they’d like on them, and a couple have been whispering some things in my sleep. Here’s one that needed a beat, and luckily I’m a drummer and can do that more or less.

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And here’s something that Kate Rogers was kind enough to come in and do for me. This one I’ve had for a little while now, and been a bit lost with how I felt about it, but Ive got some direction now. Jaron Freeman Fox is going to lay some sweet dark disco strings on it this week for me and I think that’ll do it. PS, Jaron is basically the best musician in Toronto, an amazingly nice human, and made a great record recently. Check him out.

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Headed to Montreal in an hour for a gig, then a day with my lady exploring and speaking terrible french.

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…….and this is one I thought was particularly cool. It’s a sweet not so little device that turns your iphone 4 into a full out camera that takes astonishingly good quality photos, and enables you to use real SLR lenses. Amazing. The video quality is great too, and takes advantage of the HD pretty well.

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Lately I’ve been super lucky and getting to do a ton of different recording from my living room for artists that I love and really respect. I’m glad they’re into my ramshackle home vibe. My lady friend has also been lending me her rhythmic sensibilities and doing some sweet dance conservatory approved clapping for me which has been awesome, and also being cool with our living room becoming a percussive toy land/studio from 9-5 every day. Here’s some clips of some of the things happening. I’ll get back to my own stuff later today.

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New! Coming along.

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So excited to stumble upon this website, a community of sound lovers like myself, joining forces to create interactive sound maps of Canadian cities? Where the shit do I sign up. Oh, here. Urban Sound Ecology. The site is beautifully but simply designed and the mapping interface is really cool. I’m hoping this will catch on and more cities will get added, or even just the same parts of cities at different times of the day or year.

Have a look and a good listen. This is the perfect way to get me out of the house and back on to the streets to get some different sounds in my head that I’m not creating, and some fresh air.

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Doesn’t matter if it’s in the middle of a city or on a pond in a field in Manitoba, for about 4 months of the year you hear this everywhere. This was in Christie Pitts park.

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I’ve been listening to a bunch of different hip hop that I feel like I missed out on over the past few years, and getting turned on to some amazing and seriously under valued music for people under the age of 30. It’s a generalization, but it’s kind of true. There’s part of me that would love to see more music schools recognize more hip hop and beat making techniques in school, but it’s a slippery slope of the institutionalization factor. you study something too closely from an academic stand point and you can take the feel of it all away pretty fast. Anyway, here’s a great 3 part documentary about J Dilla, one of the most important music producers of the past 20 years.

Stussy – J Dilla Documentary Part 1 of 3 from Stussy on Vimeo.

Stussy – J Dilla Documentary Part 2 of 3 from Stussy on Vimeo.

Stussy – J Dilla Documentary Part 3 of 3 from Stussy on Vimeo.

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It’s actually been a surprisingly productive week or so here, feeling like somethings getting done. Some things. Something is? Here’s a couple random pieces of ear candy from what’s been happening…..

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