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Goat

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Masked Swedish collective fusing fuzzed-out psych, Afrobeat rhythm and ritual costume — anonymity held firm across a decade of records.

Goat's origin story centres on Korpilombolo, a village in Norrbotten County said to carry a tradition of ritual music left by a visiting witch doctor, and a curse laid on the place after Christian crusaders destroyed it. Whether or not that account holds up, it has shaped the band's presentation since their first releases.

In practice the band is based in Gothenburg. Three original members are said to come from Korpilombolo, where they played together as children within a local musical tradition, and for live shows they are joined by four additional Gothenburg-based performers, making a seven-piece that performs masked and anonymous.

Musically the band combines fuzzed guitar and acid-rock soloing with Afrobeat and other West African rhythmic patterns, heavy percussion and wordless or chant-like female vocals. Recordings favour long, groove-driven jams cut with a deliberately raw, analogue feel, and the live show keeps the masks, robes and dancing that make Goat as much a visual proposition as a musical one.

Goat signed to the UK label Rocket Recordings, issuing the single 'Goatman' in 2012 ahead of the debut album World Music, which Happy Mag later placed fifth on a list of the twenty-five greatest psychedelic rock albums of the 2010s. Further albums followed: Commune (2014), Requiem (2016), Oh Death (2022), Medicine (2023) and the self-titled Goat (2024), and in 2023 the band also scored the BBC/A24 drama series The Gallows Pole, directed by Shane Meadows.

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