Dance Music volume II: More Songs for Slow Motion is the latest release by Nova Scotia’s own Joshua Van Tassel. The fully instrumental album is the obvious successor to his 2014 release, Dance Music: Songs for Slow Motion, both possessing an equally etheric quality and curious instrumentation that call to mind ominous and poignant film scores.
The record is inspired by the Ondes Martenot. A pioneering electronic instrument, the Ondes is something akin to a subtraction synthesizer with expression controls far ahead of its time. It is capable of continuous pitch but way less chaotic than a theremin, and it features a remarkable dynamic range.
Joshua Van Tassel calls the Ondes “deliberately complicated”. For an electronic instrument from the twenties, I wonder how deliberate it all was. He also calls the Ondes “a rare collectible”, and it sure is. “Dance Music” was recorded using an Ondéa instead; a fascinating, modernized, and no less exclusive reconstruction of the instrument by Calgary’s David Kean.
Van Tassel capitalizes admirably on his encounter with this instrument of legend. The Ondes was designed to match the expressiveness of the cello, and this facet is well explored through a rich performance in “Eternal Turtle”, the fourth track on the album. Together with track five, “Shadows Smile For You” — whose intro makes great use of the Ondes’ attack flexibility — they represent the most obvious appearances of the instrument. However, its sound signature is present throughout the record, interwoven in the many carefully orchestrated layers that give character to Dance Music volume II.
The music itself is meditative, expansive, and somewhat melancholic. Most of the pieces could be described as ambient soundscapes, and in general, they build up and fade out. The Ondes lends itself well to making sounds reminiscent of whale singing, waves, and storms. Perhaps, in consequence, the record as a whole has something of a maritime vibe. Emotive and soundtrack-friendly, this is really the type of music that begs for a narrative context, which is part of what makes the video for “Their Love…” so effective. Motifs are short and relatively simple, yet beautiful and accomplished in their consistency. There is a lot of complexity in the layering of voices, but it’s mostly textural and it gives weight to the harmonies rather than over-burdening them with exotic intervals.
Production-wise, the mix stands out, especially in the richness of the voices and how well the synths are integrated with the orchestral strings and piano. There are fine production details peppered throughout, like how the fade-outs usually feature track drops-outs and frequency sweeps in addition to volume changes. The fade in “Muttering Spells”, for example, progressively favours higher frequencies, making it sound like the track truly disappears into a whisper. “Conjuror-er” leverages the retro-modern trend of the synth arpeggio, but the sounds and dynamics employed here stand above the derivative. In “Shadows Smile For You” the principal motif is echoed with a sound reminiscent of water dripping inside a crystal cave. There is a quiet melody that trails after the heavy drama of “Lost Without You” fades away, and it leaves you with just a little bit of the hope from “Their Love…”
Dance Music volume II – More Songs for Slow Motion is probably as good for the soul as the very representative video for “Their Love Was Alive Before They Where Dead”, and can be widely recommended. Those with an interest in the Ondes, soundscapes, production, or ambient music, run the risk of becoming happily lost in its depth.