Joshua Van Tassel has a very intriguing new video for the track “Muttering Spells” from Dance Music Vol. 2 (More Songs for Slow Motion) due out September 11th via Backward Music. The Toronto-based composer combines his love of the very early electronic instrument, the Ondes Martenot, created in 1928 by the French inventor Maurice Martenot, with a string quartet featuring violins, viola, and cello. Like Dance Music Vol. 1…, initially recorded to be used in craniosacral therapy sessions by his wife, the music here creates a dynamic ambiance capable of moving energy.
With that said, though, Van Tassel provides quite the cryptic set-up for his newest track. He explains:
“Muttering Spells” is about attempting to do something seemingly impossible, dangerous, and that you can’t do alone. You ask for help in the wrong place and in the wrong way, and then are faced with something that comes to help you which is more impossible and dangerous than the situation itself. You persist, and your original intention is warped and changed to the will of the other. “
The video for the cut was shot and edited by Jeremy Mimnagh. Van Tassel’s deeply emotive and soaring reverie is perfectly treated here with spellbinding simplicity. A woman makes a bed and then disappears under its sheets for an afternoon nap. Meanwhile, time seems to flutter and blur as shadows play across the surface of a white sheet. Hypnotic and dream-like, sound and image combine for a rapturous experience.
