Music premieres come and music premieres go while the promo world spins around but this is one exclusive that should not pass you by. Tuning into Give Your Heart To The Hawk by Harvestman will probably change your day and maybe stretch further beyond. Here we have something that aims deeper than the surface level.
It’s a signpost from Steve Von Till’s fifth album as Harvestman, ‘Triptych: Part One’, which is due release via Neurot Recordings on April 23rd. Von Till is may be more widely known as guitarist/vocalist/lynch pin of seminal post metal pioneers Neurosis and their experimental avant offshoot Tribes Of Neurot but his creative intensity has also delivered a vibrant catalogue of solo releases. Whether through the elegiac acoustic songs under his own name or the ancient mystic folk sounds as Harvestman, Von Till’s prolific messaging consistently reaches out to the listener, then goes within. So the arrival of ‘Triptych: Part One’ stands out as a calendar event in more ways than one.
The new album is the first part of a trilogy of releases from Von Till, set to coincide with the full moon cycle, ‘Part One’ April’s Pink Moon, ‘Part Two’ July 21st’s Buck Moon and ‘Part Three’ marking the Hunter Moon of October 17th. So a collective work of ambition and scale, resonance and reverberation is emerging, with the ethereal beauty of Give Your Heart To The Hawk as a further evocative harbinger of the trilogy’s opening chapter.
Circling around a charismatic reading from eminent environmentalist/poet Robinson Jeffers and the elegant simplicity of a hovering guitar pattern, this tune needs little else than its own time and space. Here we have a sky-bound song, gliding on a distant breeze of melotron drones and soft piano touches, speaking to the “enormous invulnerable beauty of things” which Jeffers captures in his poem. With an elevational visualiser by Von Till, Give Your Heart To The Hawk is both stunning and sobering, the only kind of prequel there could be to ‘Triptych: Part One’ and all that will follow.
Pre-order your copy of ‘Triptych: Part One‘ by Harvestman (out 23rd April) from your local record store or direct from Neurot Recordings HERE
