Steve Von Till (Neurosis) Announces New Solo Album

Steve Von Till pronounces that his solo album `Alone in a World of Wounds`, will release on May 16th through Neurot Recordings. The album is enveloping and draws on the animistic spirit of the natural world.

Alone in a World of Wounds emphasizes sweeping gothic tinged Americana and includes tripped-out drones, beautiful world-weary vocal melodies, and gradually unfolding cello lines. After being inspired by the harmonic resonance of piano and synths combined with his love for ambient music, the album follows `No Wilderness Deep Enough` released in 2021. Both albums are under the reflective ambience genre. The album’s inspiration came from intuitive improvisations unlike anything he had done before. Von Till shares, “The complex overtones of upright piano and synthesisers really inspired me to sing out more, to seek out the implied harmonies, and to find unique approaches within the limitations of my voice."

Von Till showcases a rich, deep timbre and his complex melodies on `Watch Them Fade`. The lead single, alongside a stunning visual by Bobby Cochran, has also been released today.

Besides making music, Von Till is a poet (his first collection Harvestman was published in 2021), and he has a vast bank of poems and writings that often meditate on loss and longing juxtaposed with humanity's place in the universe. Moreover, our relationship with nature - and, importantly, our profound alienation from it - is crucial to the sonic tapestry of Alone in a World of Wounds. The title of the album comes from a remark made by forester and environmental philosopher Aldo Leopold in his 1949 book A Sand County Almanac, where he advocated for a paradigm shift in how people engage with nature, saying, ‘one of the penalties of an ecological educations is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.’ Besides composing, Von Till is devoted to educational work; he has taught elementary school for 24 years and is on the board of the Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit that aims to decrease suicide rates among youth of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana.

Different from Neurosis’s harsh aggression, Alone in a World of Wounds offers a more soothing approach – one that is still deeply rooted in the energy of DIY punk rock. Von Till’s process is driven by instincts aimed at achieving a primal state of creativity; one that seeks greater connection while grappling with the sorrow of detachment from the natural world.

“It is the transcendent nature of music, the cathartic healing process where I can leave everything behind and become one with sound. When you allow yourself to go beyond the ordinary you might be fortunate enough to find a moment where you are creating in alignment with the flow of the river of the universe.”

Alone in a World of Wounds, which features cover artwork by Spokane, WA alternative process photographer Brian Deemy—who sculpted with colloidal wet plate ‘tintype’ aesthetics—was masted at Circular Ruin in Brooklyn, NY with influential producer Randall Dunn (Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sunn O))), Earth, Jim Jarmusch). Deemy’s photography captioned Von Till’s raw yet sophisticated aesthetic perfectly, one forged to explore his reconception of the relationship between humanity and the transcendent reality. The album was recorded at his barn studio in Idaho.

“I often wonder where the psychological break was that caused the fatal delusion that we have dominion over the natural world, how it is reduced to existing solely for our benefit. Whenever that disconnect was - I believe it to be the root of most of our problems as a society, in relationships, and even within ourselves and our own minds. It always comes back to the fact that we must have a conscious shift back to understanding that we’re all part of a living animate earth: and that we need to think of the rivers and the mountains and the weather as part of us and us as part of the world. We are wild things but we’ve forgotten. Without this shift in consciousness we’re screwed. That’s the overarching theme. And when I look back on my life it’s becoming more explicit and more clear that this is always what I’ve been singing about”

Steve Von Till is set to perform at Roadburn 2025 (Tilburg) next month and at Prepare The Ground (Toronto) and Fire in the Mountains (Blackfeet Nation) festivals this summer. Tickets and more information are available here - stay tuned for additional North American dates.