Harvestman — Triptych Part One
“These things wash clean the mind.” Uttered by a sampled voice, this is the closing phrase to “Give Your Heart to the Hawk”, the second track on Harvestman’s pitch-perfect EP, Triptych Part One. Said track is a well-tempered collage work of atmospheric noises and spoken word ephemera, a standout among the seven pieces that make up this release for its deployment of language (the rest of Triptych Part One is purely instrumental). Nestled between two dub-inspired cuts, “Psillosynth” and “Psillosynth (Harvest Dub)”, are four more like-mided, free-floating, compositions, each with its own character but retaining the overall mood: shadowy, low-key, but without a tinge of gloom and doom. It is no surprise, then, that such an expertly crafted work would come from the hands of an extremely seasoned and accomplished musician, Steve Von Till, of Neurosis and related projects.
The individual ingredients found on Triptych Part One are familiar, to be sure – organic instrumentation combined with electronic synthesis – but their mixture, the precise manner in which they are combined, is entirely unique. Many a hardcore musician has ventured into the atmospheric territory explored on Triptych Part One, but I can think of almost no other release in the last year or so that manages to marshal its components into such a unified whole, each movement, each note, in service of a fully cognizant mood. There is no pretense, no obvious intention that sneaks through, so that each musical decision feels natural and predestined. Yes, the current work is, as the title suggests, the first part of a trilogy, though the choice of triptych is, I think, rather telling. For it is recalls a mode of presentation in which everything is fully manifest, unlike a work of literature, in which the passage from one page to the next is required.
Fans of Neurosis, Tribes of Neurot, and Al Cisneros’ dub work (he is a featured collaborator) will find much worthy of repeated listens and careful attention on Triptych Part One. Those completely unaware of the aforementioned acts, but who lean toward late-night dub encounters and darker ambience, will be rewarded, as well as those for whom musicianship means keeping the bigger picture in mind.