Joshua Van Tassel

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I’ve been bombarded in the best of possible ways by some new music lately, and I”m happy about it. It seems I go through phases where nothing’s on my radar for a month or more, then the recommendations start pouring in from friends. My general rule is that if three people I trust tell me to get a certain record, I just go get it. Such was the case with most of these, and hopefully I’ll be one of your three people.

Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
I love loops. I love singing because I can’t do it. I love effects. This record has all of these, done by someone who is very capable of doing them all extremely well. Beautiful layered harmonies, and a slowly shifting sense of ambient direction make this a perfect headphone/tea album. Just picked it up yesterday so still discovering lots about it, but I know I really like it. Here’s a video about her process –

Know Your Neighbor: Julianna Barwick, The One-Woman Choir from wnyc culture on Vimeo.

Braids – Native Speaker
Here’s a band that I discovered on a Soundscapes listening post ( please never let record stores close) and I was into it from the first 30 seconds. Lots of unidentifiable but familiar sounds zooming around, Bjork-ish vocals, really interesting drumming, and good songs. I missed their show last weekend but heard it was great.

Iron and Wine – Walking Far from Home
This is a beautiful record with uplifting songs, really really good production, questionable saxophone solos, and great harmonies. Please go buy it now.

Honourable mentions – Buck 65′s latest 20 Odd Years, Doug Paisley’s Constant Companion, and Nick Lowe’s The Convincer. Thank god cd’s are a tax write off, geez.

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Interesting short doc on vinyl and it’s return, featuring SAMO media president. Worth the 5 minutes.

Why Vinyl? from AngelaZoe HickmanMcKnight on Vimeo.

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Finally getting around to a tune that I’ve tried a couple different things with in an attempt make it less brooding, but now I’m going to embrace the drama of it. Thanks to Dean for the piano playing that’s just good enough but not too good which is exactly how I like piano in my music to be if that makes any sense. A big work in progress but here’s where it’s at so far. This whole album will be done by April with an actual release party and an actual physical thing to sell at it. Some call it a record. It’ll actually be a 7″ vinyl with a download card. I’ll keep you posted as to the details on the where’s and when. Please hold me to these grand proclamations ok? Thanks.

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So Radiohead launches another sneak attack on the completely suspecting public. There’s bound to be a million reviews in the next 24 hours or even 5 minutes, but I’ll put my 2 cents in now, because it’s my blog I suppose.

I have a interesting relationship with Radiohead, one that’s been going on since about 1993 when I first heard Creep played on the school bus tape deck heading to my first days of junior high. Was it love at first listen? Nope, but it was pretty exhilarating to hear the gigantic and ballsy “CHU CHUNK” of Johnny Greenwood’s guitar before Thom tells someone how fucking special they are. When you’re 13 and live in rural Nova Scotia, these things make an impression on you. Rural life also makes certain things not so easy to get, such as new music. Fast foward to when OK Computer came out, and I luckily had a friend heading into Halifax who agreed to pick it up and bring it home for me. I was unbelievably excited when he finally showed up that evening with it, and it didn’t disappoint. For the first time in my life I was listening to music that I knew had just changed my life. Kind of a bizarre experience. I had a date that night with a grade 11 girl, and I distinctly remember telling her I was sick and needed to stay home, and then listened to the album at least 7 times front to back. That was either really cool, or really, really stupid. Jury is still out.

As much Radiohead have changed my life, they’ve also completely underwhelmed me (Hail to the Thief), confused me for a few days (Kid A), and left me wanting more (In Rainbows). What they haven’t done is completely let me down, which is an admirable feat in an 8 album career. After a couple headphone listens today, I think the music on this new album is really, really good. It’s challenging, exciting, and sonically detailed like crazy. Haven’t gotten fully into the song writing yet, but Thom Yorke is singing strong enough right out of the gates that it’s easy to get caught up in the moment and think less about the overall structure.  My only little complaint is that it’s only 8 songs. Yes, I know you’re Radiohead, and I understand you do whatever you want, but when you release an 8 tune record that contains one tune that’s basically a crazy instrumental, and charge me $14 for the WAV files, expect me to want a little more.  I think it’s good to leave your audience hungry for something else, but it feels like someone took my plate away as I was still eating my dinner.

To sum it all up, King Of Limbs is a weird, noisy, melodious avant garde rock album, and it gives me a hopeful feeling that music like this is popular.

On a slightly side note, it was really fascinating to watch twitter today as people 1) discovered that the record was available 2) tweeted their reviews in real time. The reactions were honest, to the point, and reactionary. It felt like you were at a giant listening party where everyone could make their comments without having to shout over the music. I gotta admit, I’m liking this whole twitter thing, and if you’re on it, I”m @j_v_t.

The past few weeks have been super busy round here, and there are a couple things I’d love to share with you if you’d be so kind as to check them out?

Los Cabos is a fantastic drum stick company from New Brunswick, and I’m extremely fortunate to be recently added to their artist roster. I’ve mentioned it here before, but I have a huge issue with destroying brushes on a sometimes nightly basis for some freakish and expensive reason. I’ve now been using the LC brushes for a week and a half at a bunch of gigs and lots of recording, and wonder of wonders they’re still intact and feeling great. That’s a good sign. I’m proud to support a Canadian company with ideals and quality product like they have. Check out their website, and a nice blog post they put up to welcome me to the family.

The Outlanders is a band I’ve had the pleasure of playing in for the past few years with not only some of the best musicians I’ve worked with, but the best humans in general. We’ve been holding court every monday night at the Orbit Room for a few months now and it’s a real honour to be doing the coveted slot that for over a decade belong to Kevin Breitt. Here’s a couple videos from a night a few weeks ago shot on an iphone by our good friend and equally talented musician/human Mark Hart.

My own stuff is coming along slowly but surely now as well. Dean Drouillard and I have both been working on each other’s records, and it’s a lot of fun. Like this –

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Wasn’t that fun? I think so. Ok fine.

What else? It’s been a while, I’m sorry. I sent off 2 tunes today to 2 artists I really love and respect, and hopefully some good collaborating is going to come of it. Sometimes I need to realize when it’s time to let something go to someone else who could do exactly what was in my head, because I lack the technical ability to do it myself. I’ll keep you posted.

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It’s no secret that Christine Bougie is one of the most organized, creative, and hard working musicians out there, and it’s it’s always a pleasure to be involved with her projects in any way. A couple months ago I did a remix of her gorgeous tune “Aloha Supreme” which is about an imaginary duet between Elvis and Diana Ross. My interpretation is the story of Dian Ross dreaming of a night of dancing, singing, peanut butter sandwich eating, and intimate times with Elvis. Follow the link to Christine’s blog or click the button below and you’ll be able to download the tune. Then, go buy Aloha Supreme.

(photo by Eileen Jerrett)

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I’ve noticed my posts have becoming very point form and fast lately, get in get out. I don’t have a lot to say these days, working away. I do however want to let you know that David Myles and Dean Drouillard both have upcoming projects that I’ve been working on and the music is amazing. The music they’ve already released is amazing too, don’t get me wrong. Jaron Freeman Fox came by today and did some beautiful stuff for me, I’m really happy about it. Here’s some out of context strings that sound pretty all by their lonesome, and very pretty in the piece.

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