Thor Harris

Thor Harris

Most ambient music operates under the philosophy that less is more. Tones and textures need adequate space to reveal themselves before easing into the subconscious. Such is not the case with Thor Harris' debut, Fields of Innards, a disorienting, densely layered 12-song instrumental suite of textured percussion and glockenspiel that feels like the calm before the storm. Unlike his gorgeous guitar-feedback fragments that accompanied this year's deluxe reissue of Shearwater's Palo Santo, Austin's Harris focuses here on combining found sound – trodden leaves and backyard atmospherics – with coats of hammer dulcimer and textured xylophone. The effect is that of a hall of mirrors, unsettling and claustrophobic, as if the walls are closing in, particularly on the untitled third track, which has all the subtlety of the jarring clocks that conclude Pink Floyd's "On the Run." This is the sound of the dark side.