Album Review: Harvestman –‘Triptych: Part One’ : a breath-taking opening to an epic drone-folk series.

Steve Von Till (aka Harvestman) has always been a deep thinker who aims to reach beyond the surface level with his music. Probably more widely known as guitarist/vocalist/lynch pin of seminal post metal pioneers Neurosis and their experimental avant offshoot Tribes Of Neurot, his wider creative intentions have necessitated the release of a vibrant catalogue of solo works. Whether through the elegiac acoustic songs under his own name or the organic psych- folk sounds as Harvestman, Von Till’s focus is less about escapism and more concerned with continuation. With Harvestman in particular his work is continually evolving, drawn to ancient sites and monuments not as relics but as expressions of our ongoing connection with natural time.

Now, to further the lineage, comes Von Till’s fifth album as Harvestman ‘Triptych: Part One’ available through Neurot Recordings. It’s the first instalment of a trilogy of releases which runs in tandem with the full moon cycle, ‘Part One’ with the April’s Pink Moon, ‘Part Two’ with July 21st’s Buck Moon and ‘Part Three’ marking the Hunter Moon of October 17th. What’s promised then is a collective work of ambition and scale, one which will represent a calendar event in more ways than one.

As with the previous Harvestman album, 2017’s ‘Music For Megaliths’, the basic sources for the ‘Triptych Part One’ music have been Von Till’s home recordings, all scrupulously preserved and curated over decades. So although the compositions created for the album are very much from the here and now, they have a historical depth and provenance. Harvestman’s music is as such authentically timeless, aiming to weave together the influences of drone, cosmic rock, early kosmische and uncontaminated folk in order to articulate an other-worldly soundscape.

‘Triptych Part One’ opens with the looping, orbital drone of Psilosynth which swarms forcefully as if beckoning the momentous. That arrives with a stone sharp trip hop beat, fundamental Wobble-esque bass and the relentless tick of hissing electronics. There’s an aura of early Tangerine Dream in the track’s organ sound plus an Ozric Tentacle or two with the recurrent guitar trills and squelchy synth comments. Recorded in collaboration with Om bassist Al Cisneros it’s a track that feels like a marker, welcoming you into the experience. When Psilosynth returns as the Harvest Dub version several tracks later, spookier, grungier, bassier, the connection made to the great outlier Weatherall resonates and radiates.

With these two pivotal monuments in place Harvestman creates space for more ethereal, abstract pieces to expand ‘‘Triptych Part One’ but without losing sight of the album’s themes or sonic focus. The fourth world electronics of Coma blends tinkering organ notes with some fluttering new age gamelan patterns, a melodic cycle that keeps pace despite the shock of precision timed synth buzzes. How To Purify Mercury follows a similar trajectory, a whirring synth sonar buffeted by thunderous bass tremors which sucks itself into a single monotone. Perhaps Nocturnal Field Song is the most explosive and dark, all insect clouds and chirping crickets, clanging industrial percussion (courtesy of Yob drummer Dave French and an abandoned stock tank) and monastic choral drone. It’s a meeting of Godspeed and Basinski imagined through Von Till’s singular lens.

These pieces are kept minimal and tight but are not simple interludes, more metaphors for elemental clashes written in the future. That discussion also revolves within the beautifully realised Give Your Heart To The Hawk. Circling around a segment of the seminal environmentalist/poet Robinson Jeffers reading and the elegant simplicity of a hovering guitar pattern, this tune needs little else than its own time and space. Here is a sky-bound song, gliding on a distant breeze of melotron drones and soft piano touches, speaking to the “enormous invulnerable beauty of things” that Jeffers captures in his poem.

‘Triptych Part One’ reaches a close with Celtic tones of Mare And Foal, where treated bagpipes swirl to the melodic guitar chimes within a droning synthesised backdrop. It’s a final, yearning air comparable with Lankum’s deep feel which glances back at the folk timbres of Harvestman’s previous recordings while highlighting the cyclical principles in Von Till’s work. Maybe it’s also a harbinger of what’s to come in ‘Triptych: Part Two’, a transitional shift ahead of this epic’s next phase. As we roll towards the second instalment and the Buck moon, this first album stands as the enticing beginning of the end of the next beginning…and that’s just what Steve Von Till intended.

Get your copy of ‘Triptych: Part One’ by Harvestman from your local record store or direct from Neurot Recordings HERE