Heathen Harvest
Encyclopedia
Heathen Harvest is an Internet
publication devoted to music criticism
, music news and interviews. Its focus is on underground
and post-industrial music, including ambient
, metal
, folk
, classical
, gothic, industrial
and various forms of experimental
and avant-garde
music.
The site, which was established in 2003, is one of the longest-running webzines of its kind and has been dubbed "one of the leading online magazines for post-industrial music". Heathen Harvest has been entirely self-financed and non-profit since its foundation, being driven purely by volunteer staff "motivated by their love of music and art". The website closed in June 2010 but was relaunched in July 2011 at a different domain.
, Arcana
, In Gowan Ring, Jarboe
, Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio
, Coil
, Sol Invictus
, Von Thronstahl
, Stephen O'Malley
, Tenhi
, Tony Wakeford
and Ulver
. The magazine has also interviewed record label personnel from institutions such as Cyclic Law Records, Lens Records
, Beta-lactam Ring Records
and Ván Records.
in 2002. Thorn had moved from San Francisco to pursue a quieter life away from the city in Trinity County, California
and wanted to share his high-school influences through post-industrial music with the Radical Faeries
community.
After one and a half years Heathen Harvest moved online, hosted by the RFD website, but by 2005 it had outgrown the server and needed its own designated online space. Since moving away from the RFD, Heathen Harvest was mostly assisted by guest contributors such as Lee Powell (Judas Kiss Magazine), Troy Southgate
and Thorn's long-term partner Joshua Peters. After most of these writers left, once again Thorn ran Heathen Harvest singlehandedly until June 2006 when he recruited an array of new journalists.
Soon more journalists were welcomed onboard but eventually (with the exception of Sage L. Weatherford, Patrick O’sullivan, and Elena ZG), all of this original group left or were dismissed. A handful of new writers entered Heathen Harvest, but gradually those running the webzine began to burn out due to the amount of money and time it was taking to process the immense amount of material submitted.
to review, stating "the number of submissions far exceeds our staffs [sic] capabilities". Thorn felt positive about the achievements made by Heathen Harvest over time, saying, "I feel satisfied that the Heathen Harvest volunteer staff have given enough throughout our seven years and now its [sic] time to bow out and allow someone new and fresh to pick up the banner and lead the charge".
At the start of 2011, a collective of the old Heathen Harvest staff assembled to officially restart the webzine in a blog
format on a different server. It took several months to restart the webzine and the new site was finally launched on 4th July 2011 under the name of The Heathen Harvest Periodical to distinguish it from the old site, and under the new domain
heathenharvest.org. The site now works purely with digital review media
and is more selective over what it reviews. The old site, heathenharvest.com, still remains online for archival purposes.
for promoting far-right politics due to supposed symbolism employed on heathenharvest.com. Leigh attacked the webzine by calling its staff Neo-nazis
and insinuated that its name was code for "Heil Hitler
". The magazine responded by saying it was "an international organisation of all peoples, beliefs, and political views" and called the accusation that its staff were practicing Neo-Nazis "absurd".
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
publication devoted to music criticism
Music journalism
Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism , comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of...
, music news and interviews. Its focus is on underground
Underground music
Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...
and post-industrial music, including ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, gothic, industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
and various forms of experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
and avant-garde
Avant-garde music
Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....
music.
The site, which was established in 2003, is one of the longest-running webzines of its kind and has been dubbed "one of the leading online magazines for post-industrial music". Heathen Harvest has been entirely self-financed and non-profit since its foundation, being driven purely by volunteer staff "motivated by their love of music and art". The website closed in June 2010 but was relaunched in July 2011 at a different domain.
History
Heathen Harvest has given support to many underground artists and rarely features mainstream bands. It has a current review archive of over 4,800 individual reviews of underground music albums. The magazine has published interviews with many leading artists within the industry including Death In JuneDeath in June
Death in June are a neofolk group led by English folk musician Douglas Pearce, better known as Douglas P. The band was originally formed in Britain in 1981 as a trio, but after the other members left in 1984 and 1985 to work on other projects, the group became the work of Douglas P. and various...
, Arcana
Arcana (band)
Arcana is Swedish neoclassical band formed in 1994 and was originally signed to the Cold Meat Industry label.-History:The original band consisted of founder Peter Bjärgö and vocalist Ida Bengtsson...
, In Gowan Ring, Jarboe
Jarboe
Jarboe is an American singer, songwriter, and keyboardist.Jarboe is a solo artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with the New York City based group Swans. With founder Michael Gira, the duo was the core of Swans until the group broke up in 1998...
, Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio
Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio
Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio is a neofolk and martial industrial music group from Stockholm. The band is composed of its founding member and vocalist Tomas Pettersson, and Rose-Marie Larsen, who replaced Chelsea Krook on backup vocals...
, Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
, Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus (band)
Sol Invictus is an English neofolk and neoclassical group fronted by Tony Wakeford. Wakeford has been the sole constant member of the group since its inception, although numerous musicians have contributed and collaborated with Wakeford under the Sol Invictus moniker over the years.-Overview:For...
, Von Thronstahl
Von Thronstahl
Von Thronstahl is a German Electronic, Martial-industrial, Neoclassical and Neofolk band founded in 1995 by Josef Maria Klumb.-Albums and EPs:* 1998 Sturmzeit * 2000 Imperium Internum * 2001 E Pluribus Unum ...
, Stephen O'Malley
Stephen O'Malley
Stephen O'Malley is a musician, predominantly a guitarist, producer and composer from Seattle, Washington who has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone doom, death/doom, and experimental music groups....
, Tenhi
Tenhi
Tenhi is a Finnish band formed in 1996, playing melancholic, neofolk music. The word tenhi is an old Finnish word meaning a village elder, wise old man or seer....
, Tony Wakeford
Tony Wakeford
Anthony Charles "Tony" Wakeford is an English folk and neoclassical musician who primarily records under the name Sol Invictus.Wakeford lives in London and is married to Sol Invictus violinist Renée Rosen....
and Ulver
Ulver
Ulver is a musical group from Norway. Since their first, folklore-influenced black metal release entitled Bergtatt – Et eeventyr i 5 capitler , Ulver’s musical style has been fluid and increasingly eclectic, blending genres such as rock, electronica, symphonic and chamber traditions, noise and...
. The magazine has also interviewed record label personnel from institutions such as Cyclic Law Records, Lens Records
Lens Records
Lens Records is a Chicago based record label founded by Robert Hyman to support and distribute the works of artists who preferred to work with a smaller, artist driven label...
, Beta-lactam Ring Records
Beta-lactam Ring Records
Beta-lactam Ring Records is an American independent record label founded by Chris McBeth in 2000.. The label relocated from its founding city of Austin, Texas to Portland, Oregon in 2001....
and Ván Records.
2002-2006
Heathen Harvest originally began as the Heathen Harvest Music Review, written by Malahki Thorn for RFD MagazineRFD (magazine)
RFD is a reader-written magazine focused on queer country-living and alternative lifestyles. It was founded in 1974, and has been edited at various locations and by different groups over the course of its existence. The magazine is published on a quarterly basis from New England...
in 2002. Thorn had moved from San Francisco to pursue a quieter life away from the city in Trinity County, California
Trinity County, California
Trinity County is a large, rugged and mountainous, heavily forested county located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of California, along the Trinity River and within the Salmon/Klamath Mountains. It covers an area of over two million acres , and as of the 2010 census its population...
and wanted to share his high-school influences through post-industrial music with the Radical Faeries
Radical Faeries
The Radical Faeries are a loosely-affiliated, worldwide network and counter-cultural movement seeking to reject hetero-imitation and redefine queer identity through spirituality. The Radical Faerie movement started in the United States among gay men during the 1970s sexual and counterculture...
community.
After one and a half years Heathen Harvest moved online, hosted by the RFD website, but by 2005 it had outgrown the server and needed its own designated online space. Since moving away from the RFD, Heathen Harvest was mostly assisted by guest contributors such as Lee Powell (Judas Kiss Magazine), Troy Southgate
Troy Southgate
Troy Southgate is an author, musician and leading National-Anarchist activist based in the United Kingdom.-Politics:Originally from Crystal Palace, in South London, Southgate is of English-Scots descent and moved to the small village of Jarvis Brook, East Sussex, in his teenage years...
and Thorn's long-term partner Joshua Peters. After most of these writers left, once again Thorn ran Heathen Harvest singlehandedly until June 2006 when he recruited an array of new journalists.
2006-2010
In December 2006 the site design was overhauled and the magazine began publishing on a bi-monthly basis . Multiple journalists collectively contributed over one hundred articles per month, such as Nick Quarm, Sage L. Weatherford, Patrick O’sullivan and Elena ZG, who would make up the core of the magazine for most of this period .Soon more journalists were welcomed onboard but eventually (with the exception of Sage L. Weatherford, Patrick O’sullivan, and Elena ZG), all of this original group left or were dismissed. A handful of new writers entered Heathen Harvest, but gradually those running the webzine began to burn out due to the amount of money and time it was taking to process the immense amount of material submitted.
Closure and relaunch
In June 2010, Thorn announced that issue 84 of Heathen Harvest was to be the final issue, citing financial concerns as the reason for the closure, as well as being overburdened with promosPromotional recording
A promotional recording, or promo, is an audio or video recording distributed for free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available...
to review, stating "the number of submissions far exceeds our staffs [sic] capabilities". Thorn felt positive about the achievements made by Heathen Harvest over time, saying, "I feel satisfied that the Heathen Harvest volunteer staff have given enough throughout our seven years and now its [sic] time to bow out and allow someone new and fresh to pick up the banner and lead the charge".
At the start of 2011, a collective of the old Heathen Harvest staff assembled to officially restart the webzine in a blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
format on a different server. It took several months to restart the webzine and the new site was finally launched on 4th July 2011 under the name of The Heathen Harvest Periodical to distinguish it from the old site, and under the new domain
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
heathenharvest.org. The site now works purely with digital review media
Promotional recording
A promotional recording, or promo, is an audio or video recording distributed for free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available...
and is more selective over what it reviews. The old site, heathenharvest.com, still remains online for archival purposes.
Criticism
In 2009 Heathen Harvest came under fire from jazz musician Geoff LeighGeoff Leigh
Geoff Leigh is an English jazz and progressive rock musician, playing primarily soprano sax and flute. He was a member of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow and founded several bands himself, including Red Balune, Random Bob, Black Sheep, Mirage, and Ex-Wise Heads.-Biography:Geoff Leigh's...
for promoting far-right politics due to supposed symbolism employed on heathenharvest.com. Leigh attacked the webzine by calling its staff Neo-nazis
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
and insinuated that its name was code for "Heil Hitler
Nazi salute
The Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
". The magazine responded by saying it was "an international organisation of all peoples, beliefs, and political views" and called the accusation that its staff were practicing Neo-Nazis "absurd".