Goat: World Music Vinyl LP

One of the biggest records of the past year and it practically snuck up on us! It’s the work of an intentionally enigmatic collective from the backwoods of Sweden. According to Goat, Korpilombolo – the small village in the north of the country that the band hails from – has a mysterious, long-established tradition of voodoo worship, and local priests have been serenading the townsfolk with various strains of far-out, pan-global incantations for generations. World Music captures the current strain of this mystical practice. Perhaps it is all a little hyperbolic, but the music definitely is not. As much as Goat weave a tangled creation myth, their debut is a tapestry of styles infused with a heavy psychedelic punch. There’s strains of krautrock and Funkadelic mixed with Fela Kuti’s afrobeat and the classic rock of the UK. They don’t mimic any one of these genres, though. Instead the result is a distillation into something completely new. Drawing on their folk tradition Goat make psychedelic pandemonium for the new world. Coloredvinyl in die cut sleeve. Recommended.

• music label: Rocket Recordings 2012

reviewed by Michu Meszaros 03/2013