@tmw When having some complex channel dependencies that you are not sure how to resolve, rely on Guix REPL rather than plain Guile. The command is meant to make your life easier.

My suggestion would be:
```
$ guix repl --listen=tcp:1234
```

And then from Emacs you can do:
`M-x connect-to-guile RET localhost RET 1234`

That would give you are REPL with the environment that Guix commands see. You can add additional modules with `-L <PATH>`.