Neurosis’ Steve Von Till will release a new album by his ambient/psychedelic/drone project Harvestman, Triptych: Part One, tomorrow (Tuesday, April 23) via Neurot Recordings (pre-order). It’s part one of a trilogy, and each part comes out on a different full moon–April 23rd’s Pink Moon, July 21st’s Buck Moon, and October 17th’s Hunter Moon. Steve recorded and mixed the album himself and played guitars, bass, synths, percussion, percussion, loops, filters, and more on it, and it also features stock tank percussion by Dave French (Yob) on “Nocturnal Field Song,” bass from Al Cisneros (Sleep, OM) on “Psilosynth” and “Harvest Dub,” and Northumbrian smallpipes by John Goff (Cascadia Bagpiper) on “Mare And Foal.”
We’re premiering a full stream of the album one day before it’s official release, along with a track-by-track breakdown by Steve. Listen and read on for what he had to say…
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TRACK-BY-TRACK BREAKDOWN BY STEVE VON TILL
1. “Psilosynth”
Process: My friend, Al Cisneros (OM, Sleep) played bass on a Harvestman track years ago on my “In a Dark Tongue” album and has always said he’d be willing to put down more whenever needed. In 2019, I took him up on that offer and sent him raw tracks including a primitive drum rhythm, layers of Moog forming an evolving chord, and a pulsing track originating from my Grendel Drone Commander processed through a Sherman Filter Bank. Al found a perfect groove that anchored all these cosmic particles. Once the structure was revealed, I responded with guitars, mellotron melodies and percussion. The mix is a spaced-out journey allowing the various pieces to ebb and flow, taking turns rising to the top then dissolving back into the primordial.
Contemplation: The role of rhythms and analog synthesizers in creating meditative states of consciousness.
2. “Give Your Heart to the Hawk”
Process: This track originated with a simple electric guitar loop recorded in the living room of my A frame house with tall ceilings. I uncovered a few simple harmonic guitar shapes that kept it evolving with subtle shifts of mood. After taking it back out to my studio, I plugged my old Hondo jazz bass into a great sounding preamp and instantly had a beautiful warm round bass tone that somehow reminded me of Geezer Butler’s tone in Solitude from Master of Reality. The bass part flowed naturally. A few simple mellotron overdubs and a piano part completed the instrumental portion. After watching a documentary on the poet Robinson Jeffers, I realized that this piece was waiting for this voice and these words.
Contemplation: The ability of poetry to reconnect our minds and hearts with our wild nature and thus heal our relationship with the infinite.
3. “Coma”
Process: I started this track in Germany, in my wife’s childhood bedroom, during the same week I unknowingly composed the basic tracks of my No Wilderness Deep Enough album. A sampled loop of harmonic guitar feedback played across two notes set the tone, quickly followed by synth arpeggios and other improvisations that fly across the sound field like slow motion shooting stars. I grounded this all to earth with a fat synth bass giving it a bit of a Wish You Were Here vibe.
Contemplation: The influence of the German landscape and German music such as Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Cluster, Kraftwerk, and even Caspar Brötzmann Massaker on my own creative process.
4. “Psilosynth” (Harvest Dub)
Process: A dub version of track 1, I tried to put on my best Adrian Sherwood hat to find my own style of using dub techniques on tracks clearly not based on reggae. I synced up multiple delays to the aux sends of my mixer and ran through passes of the rhythm tracks, playing the sends, faders, and mute groups until I got a performance with the vibe I was looking for. I tried to keep the space more open and sparser, using less of the full frequency instruments from the original version and sticking to the spaced-out bits. My Subdecay Proteus sample / hold filter pedal really came into its own bringing a compelling mid-range voice on top of the open low-end groove.
Contemplation: My gratitude for dub showing me how to view the studio itself as the instrument, the mix as the performance and my undying dedication to manipulating sounds with delays and filters.
5. “How to Purify Mercury”
Process: A piece that originated on my old ½ inch 8 track reel to reel 20 years ago when I still lived in California, this simple noise guitar meditation just needed to find its time and place. After revisiting the track, it was clear a couple simple synth overdubs would give it the necessary context to join the other tracks on the album.
Contemplation: How Harvestman is a sort of sonic alchemy for me based largely on random and chance elements finding their way into becoming something more.
6. “Nocturnal Field Song”
Process: During the winter of 2019 / 2020 while clearing our road with my old Suburban armed with a large snowplow, I accidentally tore a large hole in the side of the steel stock water tank that we keep on the property for the deer and moose. When the snow melted, I was rolling it to my truck to take it to the scrap yard when I realized that it sounded amazing. I started hitting it in various places and realized it had many different sounds in it and that I would keep it as a percussion instrument. Fast forward a few months, my friend, Dave French (now drummer of Yob) came out to stay with us for a while and join me in composing some tracks based on this large, galvanized piece of steel. We rolled it into the barn close to my studio, put microphones on it and started to improvise rhythms. We noticed the crickets outside were so loud they would end up on the recording, so we opened the barn doors and allowed their pulse to become the tempo. The crickets lead us through this take. Back in the studio we added synth drones, processed guitar noise, and some dub style delay effects on the percussion. It resulted in a perfectly captured moment of a dark moody summer night in the forest.
Contemplation: The amazing ability of an entire forest of crickets to find the same rhythm and the music of the night. The ability of human beings to make music with primitive materials, it only takes inspiration.
7. “Mare and Foal”
Process: I have known John Goff since the mid 1990s. He has played bagpipes on Neurosis records and allowed me to mangle recordings of his bagpipes on my first Harvestman album and is always up for letting me respectfully distort, destroy, delay, and process his pipe tunes into new and unexpected territory while maintaining the energy, emotion, and intent of the original. In 2021 he came out to visit and laid down several tracks. This piece began as random improvisations on his set of small pipes. I looped it, stretched it, delayed it, filtered it, added synth drones, and eventually added a simple finger picked electric guitar to bring it into context with the rest of the album.
Contemplation: How interesting it is that such an abrasive, loud, and unique reed instrument can consistently stir the soul. Even though I have never visited the highlands of Scotland I have journeyed there sonically in my mind’s eye many times. It’s on my bucket list for future travels. And naturally, I was contemplating standing stones.