Releasing a full length album for the first time is a daunting task for any musician to take, but for the past twelve months 19-year-old Australian creative Harvest has traversed the journey to what he calls the “honest and real form” embodiment of what he has become as an artist. Subtle Fold is not only Harvest’s debut album, but also his first full length body of work that incorporates his own vocals and songwriting within. Subtle Fold is an echoey footstep into the mind of an already cemented underground artist, and explores themes of love, loss and pain through the carefully pieced together twelve tracks by Harvest.
Beginning the album, “Your Heart Is Where This Started” is a sweltering track of clicks, piano chords and hushed singing from Harvest. The tranquil waves of soothingness peaks listeners ears, and utterly begins the album in the utmost fashion.
‘Cause home is where the heart is // Your heart is where this started
During the years it’s taken Harvest to make Subtle Fold, he admits that he had many different plans for the project, “During the formative years of Subtle Fold I had a really different idea of what I wanted the album to be,” he says. “Originally I planned for it to be all instrumental, with a lot of vocal and production features. I was extremely unconfident in my production and voice; which meant that I planned on having a lot of collaborations to make the album sound the way I wanted it to.”
However, following the planning of collaborations and a focus on his own instrumentals, Harvest set out to follow a concept heavily involving his own singing. Striving to create an airy atmospheric masterpiece, Harvest decided it was best to debut his own vocals alongside the experimentally produced debut.
“I felt like it was important to keep both aspects of my artistry on the album purely, because I still believe that my vocals alone aren’t quite good enough where they could carry an entire album,” Harvest says. “At the end of the day I still consider myself much more a producer than a vocalist, so I wanted to ensure that there were some spots in the album where it was just strictly my production without vocals. Plus if you don’t like my voice, than at least you have the chance to maybe dig some of the parts where there isn’t my voice on the album!”
However, many of the standout moments on Subtle Fold come from Havests vocal performance. The seventh track, “She’s Safe” is an exemplary example of the cohesion Harvest creates when singing over his own instrumentals. Almost hidden behind the beat of the song, Harvest soothingly sings about wanting to keep his love encapsulated away from the problems in their respective relationship.
Tell them she’s safe // Deep in their head she waits // She’s got nothing to say //
“A lot of my personal insecurities still drag me down when it comes to singing on my songs, but throughout my vocal journey I have become increasingly more confident in my voice,” Harvest notes. “I feel like I’m at a level now where I can happily release a full project where both aspects of my creative expression are explored.”
“Find the Light Inside,” particularly stands out to Harvest. Although the track was made in only an “hour or two”, Harvest still cites the song as one of his favorite on the project. “That track was just super fun to make, and it allowed me to really toy around with my production and vocals. It’s quite a happy and playful song in my opinion, and those types of songs are always enjoyable to create.”
As Harvest has capitalized on his years as a producer across the underground by honing in his unique production based skillset, his instrumental focused tracks across Subtle Fold are some of his best to date. The fourth track, “Arranged Measures,” focuses on a vocal backing among steady lo-fi style drums. The song stands out as being one of the most upbeat on the project, even in it’s own intricate pacing.
While two of the hugest highlights on the project come from the plucking dreamscape “Your Mind Is Dry” and the guitar driven “Sun Shining Through Your Skin,” it was the latter song that took Harvest the longest to create. “It took a little bit over a year to make, and it was just a song that I had to just keep coming back to and refining,” Harvest recalls. “It was originally going to be an instrumental I was going to send to someone, but I decided that I should probably keep it to myself for a later date. It was strictly an instrumental for most of the time that I worked on it, and then the day before a gig I played last year I decided that I should perform it live; so I quickly wrote the lyrics for it and then performed it the day afterwards.”
Both songs “Your Mind Is Dry” and “Sun Shining Through Your Skin” incorporate beautiful elements of the Harvest catalog, from a reverb induced guitar lead and rattling drum patterns. On “Your Mind Is Dry”, Harvest showcases his writing ability by detailing a crumbling love affair.
Satisfy these prior lies I can’t forget your mind is dry // Built inside through compromise I won’t forget the facts implied // What will it take? // To build up these walls, just to let them break
“It’s weird to say, but I feel like a lot of my lyrics are heavily swayed by the emotions that the instrumentals gave to me,” Harvest notes when discussing his songwriting process. “I always like to make the instrumental first, and from there I listen to it repeatedly and try to write about things that coincide with the atmosphere of the instrumental. My lyrics are heavily inspired by the sonic qualities that I interpret from the song. For me it’s just how I write music, but in the future I’d definitely like to experiment with dabbling into different topics and themes, instead of just ones that I believe fit with the instrumental.”
The album ends with the six minute titular track, leaving listeners to ponder over the appeasing lull of bright sonics over sounds of a surrounding nature landscape. Overall, the album is a traverse step into an open canvas of colors old and new from Harvest. While his raspy unique vocal inflection is sure to glisten in the ears of any new or old fan, his instrumentals have grown progressively into full productions rather than masterfully produced beats.
As Harvest prepares for his own enjoyment of the project actually being out, his sights are set on letting it live until he feels the need to make a proper follow up. While he plans to release Subtle Fold on cassette in the near future, he also wrestles with an idea to produce a deluxe edition of the album. While he considers his career as a producer much more important to him (Harvest recently produced for TeamSESH’s Bones), he also sees growing his own catalog of solo work as a gratifying experience like no other.
“I definitely want to try and expand both into the future. Perfecting your own craft is a never-ending process, and nothing brings more gratification than creating a body of work that is personal to you. This gratification is a big factor in me finishing this album, because in creating this project; I learnt a lot about how fun making music truly is! You should be making songs that can represent who you are, which is something that I believe subtle fold accurately expresses. Subtle fold is harvest in its honest and real form, and despite its flaws I am incredibly proud to call this project mine.”
Listen to Harvest’s debut album Subtle Fold below.