Underneath The Earth

Exploring hauntological soundscapes, the UK-based duo of Beck Goldsmith and Jon Dix are happy to present their debut work getting the listeners back to the inner-connection with the natural world.

Chimehours are a collaborative effort of Beck Goldsmith and Jon Dix who had already worked together on several indie folk releases in the past teaming up right now to create a new musical project in which they could express their shared love for folk horror, ghost stories and supernatural. “We wanted to do something that musically spoke to those influences and allowed us to explore the themes they raise – nature, folklore, time, community, and a sense of the uncanny,” recalls Beck.

The album concept took shape after a candlelit reading of Max Porter's ‘Lanny’ one Burns Night. Jon explains, “The themes and setting cemented our ideas and gave us a specific focus, and we imagined ourselves writing a soundtrack to the book, or to an imagined film of the book. From there, the songs came together at their own pace and distance”. Inspired by ethereal minimalism, retro cinema and folk narratives, Chimehours craft a sonic palette reflecting on the pressures of modern life and the desire for reconnection with the natural world. 'The idea of a lost child's connection with a Green Man-style character in the Lanny book also finds itself in the premiered single. Beck clarifies, “With Underneath the Earth, we wanted to capture this complicated relationship with nature and the sense of something calling to us from somewhere else – an 'otherness' that exists just outside of what we know and understand. Something old and eternal and familial, and at the same time unsettling”.

Written and produced between Derbyshire, London and Margate during lockdown and beyond, the album incorporates drones, drums, gritty guitars merging with woodwind, strings and voice textures that resist clear linearity. “We started to get bigger and bolder in our approach, and it was fun and mysterious and compulsive to bring it all together (as though other forces were at work...),” shares the duo.

1. Branches

2. Underneath The Earth

3. Toothwort Took Him

4. Greentree

5. Making A Mountain

6. Dead Papa Toothwort

7. Bowerbird

8. Run

9. Look For Me

10. Can't Find Your Way

11. We Follow

12. Say Your Prayers

13. Dead Papa Toothwort (Decayed)