Plague Dogs, by The Heartwood Institute

Plague Dogs

by The Heartwood Institute

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Edition of 200 glass mastered CDs in a recycled card gatefold sleeve.

Includes unlimited streaming of Plague Dogs via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.	Rowf 05:34	buy track
2.	Snitter 03:20	buy track
3.	Escape From Lawson Park 02:39	buy track
4.	The Tod 03:04	buy track
5.	Coniston Old Man 04:24	buy track
6.	Levers Hause 04:51	buy track
7.	Dunmail Raise 05:17	buy track
8.	Across Dollywagon Pike To Helvellyn 05:17	buy track
9.	Ghost Dog 04:46	buy track
10.	Raven Crag 04:54	buy track
11.	Wrynose Pass 06:00	buy track
12.	Harter Fell 02:44	buy track
13.	La'al Ratty 06:01	buy track
14.	The Beach At Drigg - Rescued 03:18	buy track

about

Jonathan Sharp has been releasing music as The Heartwood Institute for over a decade now, with albums on many labels such as Castles in Space, Woodford Halse, Spun Out of Control and Sleep FUSE. Plague Dogs is his first for Folk Police Recordings and the first release in our Earth Studies Field Trips series.

The album is inspired by the author Richard Adams' classic 1977 novel, The Plague Dogs, about the friendship between two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, who escape from an animal research station and are pursued both by the government and the media. The book is set in Cumbria, where Jonathan is also based, and the music on Plague Dogs strongly reflects the Cumbrian landscape, from the craggy and mysterious fells to the gentle hills and pastoral farmland.

Jonathan focused on a series of key locations and events from the book, aiming to encapsulate these with the music. He spent several afternoons out and about in the Lake District doing location recordings. Some of these were used as they were, others were heavily manipulated and turned into synth and sampler patches. Many of the synth sounds were made from scratch: Jonathan describes his process as building the noises he wants to use from the ground up.

The front cover photo is of Helvellyn, and photos of other locations from the book are included in the CD sleeve artwork.

Any profits from this album will be donated to Animal Rescue Cumbria - a favourite charity of Jonathan's. 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.

***

“Jonathan Sharp applies his usual high-quality, thoughtful expertise to the project… The drum ’n’ bass deep twang, the pitter-patter artificial 808-like drum ticks, they feel very dancefloor only repurposed for downtempo electronics. And that’s the interesting thing here. It all feels like some of these sounds belong somewhere else, different styles of music or running at different tempos. I do love what he’s done here… This is quality gear from a quality artist.”

Moonbuilding Weekly

Plague Dogs blends the poetry of nature with the vibrations of electronics… an explosion of cosmic synths and anxiety-inducing rhythms, a wave of sound that overwhelms, envelops, and destabilizes the listener, leaving them suspended between reality and madness… The Heartwood Institute transports us to a boundless space, an infinite universe of harmonic patterns and synth layers that gently guide us toward the unknown, toward infinity, and beyond. A sonic journey that blends technology and poetry, inviting us to lose ourselves in an odyssey of endless sounds.

Radioaktiv.it

credits

released April 20, 2026

All music written and recorded by The Heartwood Institute

Inspired by the novel The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

Mastered by Antony Ryan at Red Red Paw

Photography by Jonathan Sharp

CD Design by the Folk Police

CD Printed on recycled card

The label will donate its share of any profits from this album to Animal Rescue Cumbria

www.animalrescuecumbria.co.uk

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FOLK POLICE RECORDINGS Manchester, UK

Folk Police Recordings is a record label raising funds for wildlife conservation and nature recovery. Folk. electronica, ambient & experimental sounds. The Silent Harvest and Earth Studies Field Trips

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Plague Dogs

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