The wild goats (Capra Hircus) of the Cheviot hills have lived there for millennia and are the Avatars of the wild places. If there is a heathenry left on this island, it is to be found the places where the wild goats gather, in the secret valleys and alongside nameless burns. They are the Children of Pan in an Arcadia that straddles both the imagination and the real world.
This is TenHornedBeast intentionally moving in a different direction from the cryptic doom-ambient of 2022's "The Lamp Of No Light". "Capra Hircus" is full of the glowing sunrise of hill-top psychedelia and shimmering, spiralling drones that mimic the abstract lines of the rock-art panels that mark the landscape. The music flows outwards and immerses the listener in looping, hypnotic waves of feedback.
"I dream in landscapes and this is very much an "outdoor" album. When I was recording these pieces I was hoping to capture the openness and sense of wonder that I get from the high places. I've walked these hills for many years, where earth and sky meet and I was searching for a new way to be TenHornedBeast, although it's very much the same ideas that inspired me twenty years ago – just seen in colour".
TenHornedBeast is the revelation of Christopher Walton.
For my father, who first showed me the woods. I am he, one more leaf upon the tree.
Recorded through the Winters of 2023 and 2024 at the side of the Great North Road.
Mastered by Martin Bowes at The Cage, 2024.
Photographs taken by Christopher Walton on the High Places of Pennine Horeb.
Design by Abby Helasdottir.
