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The upcoming American dark folk group Harvest Rain deliver a new album which pursues a "ghost ambient" style and features guest musician Tor Lundvall for one track.
OPN is proud to announce that HARVEST RAIN's brandnew CD, "Night Chorus", is to be unleashed in April ! This masterpiece of haunting music you must not miss !
It features about an hour of excellent music , some of which has been done in collaboration with such great artists as Axel Frank (Werkraum), Tor Lundvall or Amanda Votta. A record to play alone...in the dark !
Strange Fortune listener reviews are a free space to share your impressions of the music.
Michael J. Salo says on 19 May 2005
My first impression is very positive. I don't remember much about Harvest Rain's last release, just that it struck me as fairly standard dark folk that was OK but still needed more work. The main point of interest was that this is one of the few American bands pursuing this style of music.
Putting on this new album I was surprised to discover a heavily keyboard-based, soft and morose, ghostly atmospheric release. There are acoustic guitars and male vocals as before but it's all kept buried under the mellow electronic tones.
Emphasizing keyboards over real instrumentation is dangerous ground, that's usually a way to guarantee a scathing review out of me. Yet it can be done well, and I find I'm easily disarmed by this music. It comes on like a comfortable enveloping fog. I'm not hearing the standard MIDI soundbank, I'm hearing sounds well sculpted to the specific atmosphere.
Tor Lundvall has sometimes described his music as "ghost ambient," and I believe that description applies to this Harvest Rain album as well. Tor makes a guest appearance here but it's not hugely noticeable, just a subtle contribution of background music on one track. What is noticeable is a similar approach to moody atmospheric music throughout the whole album.
This lush mix of soft keyboards and guitars and vocals will definitely bring to mind But What Ends When the Symbols Shatter-era Death in June, and I'm also getting a shoegazer vibe out of this. It has had me staring toward the floor in a daze more than once.
The recording quality is not high technically. The vocals and instruments often sound tinny or muddy. But it works anyway. In fact I'm cautious about recommending clearer sound quality because the lo fi recording may be part of what makes this album work.
The graphic design is kind of sloppy, featuring blurry photography and awkwardly layed out text with typos. The best part is a Tor Lundvall drawing reserved for the disc itself.
Apparently the band has been around for several years now and has done a number of limited EP's and CDR releases but Night Chorus is their first properly distributed CD album release for a label.
In my judgment this album puts Harvest Rain toward the top of the American post-industrial dark folk scene.
vespers75 says on 17 Jun 2005
I've been a fan of Harvest Rain for quite some time now. I also have the EP "A Frost Comes With the Wind," and a few CD-Rs given to me by Jason himself. This new album..."Night Chorus"....shows a slightly different side of Harvest Rain, though the dark-folk aspect is still present on several of the tracks. The "ghost ambient" approach to many of the new tracks provides a new level of atmosphere. Where the previous EP had an ambience that reminded one of the rustic harvest and autumn equinox, this full-length album is more akin to the soundtrack of chilly, samhain nights. This album is one of the best I've heard this year.
srowens says on 17 Aug 2005
as if Death in June were signed to Projekt records...when it works its amazing..although often it reminds me of LYCIA..etc.which is fine ..just not quite what I expected.
pif242 says on 26 Aug 2005
Yes !! This is exactly it. I was wondering who this music made me think to, and Lycia is definitely true I just couldn't put the name on it. No harm meant here because Lycia is a great band (they just disbanded I heard by the way). To the credit of this wonderful album I would say that I find it deeper than Lycia on the vocal side and ambient arrangements (Surely the collaboration with Tor Lundvall helps here). It takes time to get into this album and I have read mixed reviews in various magazines and websites. Seriousely this album deserves to be discovered and to make an opinion by yourself. So is it surprising ? yes. Is it just another Eis & Licht neofolk release ? no. Is it going to make you wonder where lies the future of neofolk ? yes. Is it a worthy effort ? totally in my opinion. So find a place on your shelves for Harvest Rain. Maybe you'll have to create a new section : experimental ambient neofolk.
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