Harvestman to Release Triptych Part Three Oct. 17; New Song Posted
It is a very Steve Von Till move to put out the remix before the root form of the song in question. Ever-experimental in just about any musical context, the former Neurosis guitarist/vocalist will complete the Triptych album series on Oct. 17, of course through Neurot Recordings. “Clouds Are Relatives” is the first track on the album, and “Clouds Are Relatives (The Bug ‘Amtrak Dub Mix’)” is the first single, for which a video is streaming at the bottom of this post. Explorations around dub have been a big part of Triptych more broadly, with Kevin Martin aka The Bug (who is now signed to Relapse; expect more remixes) and Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) collaborating with Von Till here and on past installments. I don’t know how many surprises can be in store for Triptych Part Three after the first two earlier this year, but I do know enough to trust Von Till to come up with sounds that are as personal as they are adventurous, glancing inward and at the universe more broadly at once, through music. It’s kind of just how he does.
Note also Dave French (YOB, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth), Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Cower, producer for everyone in the UK not produced by Chris Fielding), Sanford Parker (Buried at Sea, Corrections House, etc.) and a slew of others guesting. There’s even an Echoplex, which is becoming increasingly rare, mostly I think because the remaining actual-machines are broken and there aren’t enough around anymore to use as spare parts. March of time and all that. I have no doubt Triptych Part Three will put it to good use.
Info from the PR wire:
HARVESTMAN ANNOUNCES TRIPTYCH PART THREE TO BE RELEASED VIA NEUROT RECORDINGS TO COINCIDE WITH THE HUNTER MOON ON 17TH OCTOBER
SHARES “CLOUDS ARE RELATIVES (THE BUG “AMTRAK DUB MIX”)”
PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE ONLINE: https://music.neurotrecordings.com/triptych3
Throughout 2024, and marking three full moons, Harvestman (a.k.a. Steve Von Till) will be presenting his ambitious Triptych project, a three-part album cycle. This album trilogy is a distillation of a unique approach that finds a continuity amongst the fragmented, treating all its myriad musical sources and reference points not as building bricks, but as tuning forks for a collective ancestral resonance, residing in that liminal space between the fundamental and the imaginary, the intrinsic and the speculative.
Today, Harvestman announces the completion of the trilogy with the arrival of Triptych Part Three on 17th October via Neurot Recordings to coincide with the Hunter Moon. The album features very special guests, including The Bug, Wayne Adams, Sanford Parker and Al Cisneros – to name a few.
Alongside the announcement, Harvestman leads with the track, “Clouds Are Relative (The Bug – Amtrak Dub Mix)”, which sees The Bug, a master of monolithic sound, put his own deep and earth-rumbling take on the opening track. The music is brought to life with visuals and animations from Thomas Hooper.
About the lead track, “Clouds Are Relatives (The Bug “Amtrak Dub Mix”) Steve Von Till says; “with the original version of this track (the third piece of the series with Al’s bass) I wanted to replace my original percussion tracks with something better, so I called upon Wayne Adams of Petbrick since I had recently contributed vocals to one of their songs. He came up with a really heady combination of live drums and glitchy electronic drums. It added an alternative unique dimension, I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. When it came time to dub this track, my first attempt didn’t feel right, so I reached out to Kevin Martin aka The Bug to see if he would be into giving it a go. What you hear is the end result: a deep, dark dub by a master.”
Woven together from home studio recordings that span two decades, and with some notable guest appearances including; The Bug, Douglas Leal of Deafkids, Wayne Adams of Petbrick, Dave French of Yob and Sanford Parker, this final part of the Harvestman Triptych seeks once again for a lost world, with the voice of poet Ezra Pound extolling the virtues of “gather[ing] from the air a live tradition”. Elsewhere, “Herne’s Oak” provides seismic bass waves that physically halt the track in its steps – giant footfalls as Herne’s antlers themselves are dragged along a corridor. Another curious and mysterious piece of British folklore brought to life by Harvestman.
If Triptych is a multi- and extra-sensory experience, it extends to the remarkable glyph-style artwork of Henry Hablak, a map of correspondences from a long-forgotten ancient and advanced civilization. As with Triptych itself, it’s an echo from another time, an act of binding, a guide to be endlessly reinterpreted, and a signpost to the sacred that might not indicate where to look, but how.
TRIPTYCH PART THREE TRACK LISTING:
Side A
Clouds Are Relatives
Snow Spirits
Eye The Unconquered Flame
Side B
Clouds Are Relatives (The Bug – “Amtrak Dub Mix”) [visualiser]
The Absolute Nature of Light
Herne’s Oak
Cumha Uisdein (Lament for Hugh)
Triptych Part Three will be available as a standard weight vinyl, in one colour, Cloudy Clear + Black Galaxy effect vinyl, in dub style jacket (jacket sleeve with center hole cut out so label of LP shows through) a black paper inner sleeve and poly bag.
Part One was released on the Pink Moon on 23rd April and Part Two was released on 21st July’s Buck Moon.
Harvestman Triptych Part Three album credits:
Steve Von Till – guitars, bass, synths, percussion, stock tank, loops, filters and mutations
Kevin Richard Martin aka The Bug – dub mix of Clouds
Dave French – stock tank percussion on Herne’s Oak, frequency consult
Al Cisneros – bass on Clouds and Bug Dub
Wayne Adams – acoustic drums, electronic beats, and processing on Clouds
John Goff – bagpipes on Cumha Uisdean
Sanford Parker – synths, processing, mixing on Herne’s Oak
Ryan Van Blokland – organ, synth, found sounds and echoplex on Eye
Dovglas Leal – bouzouki on Eye and flutes on Absolute
Narration on Eye the Unconquered Flame – “Canto LXXXI” by Ezra Pound
Recorded and Mixed at The Crow’s Nest, North Idaho by SVT
Mastered by James Plotkin
Artwork and layout by Henry Hablak
https://www.facebook.com/SteveVonTill/
https://www.instagram.com/stevevontill/
https://www.vontill.org/
https://www.instagram.com/neurotrecordings
https://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings
https://neurotrecordings.bandcamp.com
https://www.neurotrecordings.com
