The Heartwood Institute - Plague Dogs

The first release in our Earth Studies Field Trips series comes out on 20th April. On his new album, Plague Dogs, Jonathan Sharp aka The Heartwood Institute brings his unique take on radiophonic hauntronica to Folk Police Recordings. The album now is available for pre-order on Bandcamp.

The album is inspired by Richard Adams’ 1977 novel, The Plague Dogs, about the friendship between two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, who escape from an animal research station. The book is set in Cumbria, where Jonathan is also based, and the music on Plague Dogs strongly reflects the Cumbrian landscape, from craggy and mysterious fells to gentle hills and pastoral farmland - with field recordings from locations from the book.

Any profits from this album will be donated to Animal Rescue Cumbria. This feels particularly apt, given that the fellwalker, author and illustrator Alfred Wainwright, who drew the original illustrations for The Plague Dogs, was closely involved with Animal Rescue Cumbria and donated the royalties from many of his books to them.