30 May 2020

Rocket Probes – May 2020 (Lockdown) Playlist



Autotelia – First Flight
(Incredible machine driven kosmich bliss...debut album up for presale now)

Magaletti & Ribeiro – Viaggio inverso
(First track to be revealed from this GNOD/Tomaga collab)

Miles Davis – The Hen
(At his fuzziest best)

Modulator II – Slivered Hearse
(Great bit of French garage psych on Stolen Body)

Chouk Bwa & The Ångstromers – Odjay - Nati Kongo
(Crazy rhythms)

Tambourinen – Wooden Flower
(Myrrors man) 

Eddie Jefferson – Psychedelic sally
(P-soul)

Plaza Hotel – Bewegliche Ziele
(Jaki from Can laying his groove over new wave synth in '81)

Nine Inch Nails – Ghost IV / Ghost V
(A couple of really interesting albums from Rezner and co)

Gal Costa – Gal Costa
(Thanks to Jimmy for awakening us to this one) 

Motörhead - Nightmare/The Dreamtime
(Motör Magnet)

The Troggs - I just Sing
(One for The Fall fans)

Graham Jefferies - Is the timing wrong
(Lofi VU folk sounds from ‘88 New Zealand...one from the Revolver Records years)

Gila - S/T
(Classic krautprog)

Ben Salisbury, The Insects & Geoff Barrow – DEVS Soundtrack
(Great sounds)

Broadcast – Peel session 2003
(What a band!)

The (Hypothetical) Prophets - Wallenberg (French Version)
(Mutant sounds from Bernard Szajner)

Lushworker – Cruise / Uplift / Hb1c MkII
(Droning fuzz)

Sven Wunder – Eastern Flowers
(Middle Eastern grooves)

Group A – Inhuman Ecstacy
(When in berlin)

Von Himmel - Space Communion
(Forgot about this kosmiche classic from 2009)

Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestarin Kynsi
(Great psyched 'metal' from Finland)

The Transcendence Orchestra – The golden jaws of the celestial vice
(Immerse)

Memnon SA – World Serpent
(Proggy psych explorations)

Ahiyana – Idassane Wallet Mohamed 
(West African repetitions)

Purple Sun – Dooms Day
(Fuzz rock)

France – OTT
(One of our fave bands around)

Rose City Band – Rivers of Mind
(Repetitive country sounds)

Yozeph of Kirezi - Theme
(One for the Heads fans)

Tony Allen With Africa 70 - No Accommodation For Lagos
(One of the greatest...RIP)

Kraftwerk – Live on Radio Bremen
(The band for where it all began for many...RIP Florien)

Pretty Things – S.F Sorrow
(What a frontman...RIP)

Catherine Christer Hennix - Blues Alif Lam Mim In The Modes Of Rag Infinity/ Rag Cosmosis
(Stunning...cheers Jimmy!)
Catherine Christer Hennix

Dead Kennedys – Riot
(Playing into their hands...)
Dead Kennedys


Listen to our 'updated monthly' Rocket Probes Spotify playlist here:



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29 May 2020

Sex Swing and Kooba Tercu in The Quietus's Albums of the Month



They say:

Sex Swing – Type II

Many listeners will credit Type II with the maturation and increased accessibility of Sex Swing's sound. That wouldn't be an inaccurate critique. But it doesn't address the fact that Sex Swing haven’t actually diminished in ferocity since their last album. What they've been able to do though is tighten their dirges into soaring anthemic hymns that aspire to the transcendental. This undercurrent of bliss functions as a kind of anti-cathexis that binds the band's more brutally primitive impulses. While the band still make use of punishing rhythmic repetition, the album seems less concerned with malfeasance than it does with connecting the human spirit with some ethereal element that binds us together.

Kooba Tercu – Proto Tekno
The first thing among many that slaps you in the face when you play Kooba Tercu's new record is its feral, white hot energy. Opening track 'Benzoberry' is a scorcher, a cyclone of guitars and screamed vocals, scuzzed up to the max, whirling around an evil black hole of a bassline. Then, on 'Cemento Mori', a bone-shaking groove emerges from the chaos, twisting and lurching and mutating like some kind of monstrous ooze as it goes, but never deviating from its terrifying march. That deep, dark power at the core of Proto Tekno is always there, pulsing forwards through the record's swampy grooves and hypnotic repetitious percussion, but the exact way in which the band yields it keeps morphing and twisting.

Sometimes they're positively minimal, succumbing to a bracing battle rhythm, and at others they're overwhelmingly noisy, particularly when feral synths and wild, indefinable noises join the fray, frontman Johnny Tercu howling as if he's being physically thrown around by the maelstrom. The overall effect is a record that feels like a shapeless, constantly-shifting storm that surrounds a mysterious, dark central power – like the millennia-old hurricanes of a gas giant, whirling around its core.

Read the rest here: The Quietus

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GNOD's classic 'Trepanation' shirt available to order for 'one-day-only' on 5th June
































There has been a lot of requests recently for GNOD to reprint their classic 'Trepanation for the National Health' T-shirt, so the band thought, why not?

So we have decided to do a 'made-to-order' run to coincide with the up-and-coming- Bandcamp 'no-fee' day on Friday 5 June.

So that means the shirt will be available to purchase for 'one-day-only' – what shirts are ordered are what is going to be made.

You can order for 24 hours from 9am on 5 June here: GNOD

We will also have the classic 'Just Say No to the Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine' shirts available on Red and Black shirts that can also be bought from that link.

And just to warn you, Rocket has a couple of other very special 'ltd goodies' we are announcing next week that will also be up for presale on the 5th June!

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28 May 2020

Loud and Quiet put Sex Swing's Type II in their 'Albums of the Month'



They say:


Artist: Sex Swing
Title: Type II
Label: Rocket Recordings

What is it? A supergroup comprising luminaries of the UK underground – Mugstar, Bonnacons of Doom, Dethscalator, Earth, and countless more – with their sophomore of amplified industrial catharsis.


L&Q says: “Order and chaos rule Type II, and Sex Swing would’ve made a far less engaging LP had they allowed one to supersede the other.”

See the full list here: Loud and Quiet

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Beats Per Minute reviews Kooba Tercu


They say:

The members of Kooba Tercu are now located in Greece, Crete and London, and on new album Proto Tekno you can almost hear the joyful abandon at play in their coming together. Communion is a key element in this album; that point at which the music transcends the role of being the vessel of the message to evolve into the message. Proto Tekno skips from one aural landscape to the next, paying no great heed to the song writing rules of generic parameters that record company execs seem to cling onto so blindly for ease of commodifying a product. The listener is served up an array of styles on this, their third album, that shifts, contorts and shakes.


Album opener “Benzoberry” kicks into life with a fuzzy adrenalin-fuelled guitar line and we are in garage rock territory. Drums hurtle and crash, the bass stays stoically repetitive, while the guitar lines skim over the track’s surface in exuberant manner as they careen this way and that, a law unto themselves. Vocal lines are buried deep in the mix, a repeated refrain toward the end serving as an incantation to who-knows-what – a joyful and wholly life affirming banger of a track...

Read the rest here: Beats Per Minute

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Watch Petbrick live at Le Guess Who Festival




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27 May 2020

RTMB Music reviews Kooba Tercu's Proto Tekno


They say:

Kooba Tercu delivers an exploration of sounds that seek to capture his concern for modern life and a dystopian future not too distant as a result of the rapid urbanization of his native country, hence the cover art where a well-built structure remains abandoned to the degree to unite with nature that perhaps in its time was destroyed for its construction.


This album was recorded at the same time as its previous album and like that it was composed based on improvisations which explains the way in which each song flows because even those with a conventional structure feel like passages that are unfolding little by little. Little, being a wild force in the distorted sound that characterizes the entire album and it is impressive how consistent it is for the different ways they present it, for example, "Kamehameha" is a song that seems to have Sludge Metal influence with some vocals that remind me of The Resindents, "Boiler" can be more closely associated with Ambient and IDM, "Qasan" sounds like a Krautrock ritual with Noise and yet they keep these genres never far enough apart for the album to lose its pace and come to a satisfactory conclusion...

Read the rest here: RTMB Music

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26 May 2020

Backseat Mafia reviews Kooba Tercu


They say:

Arriving via a triangulation of Athens, Crete and London, yet existing at a psychic intersection between the ruins of crumbling infrastructure and an intimidating future dystopia Kooba Tercu have seen fit to take arms as only they see fit. This week they unleash their latest offering Proto Tekno on the world, via Rocket Recordings.


Led by Johnny Tercu, and sharing common members with bands like hypno-rock force Casual Nun and electronic experimental outpost Echo Canyon, this collective joined forces over a ten-day studio session in which a furious bout of creativity and chemistry led to not only their second album ‘Kharrub’ (which emerged as a release split between the London-based Hominid Sounds and the Greek labels Mafia and Body Blows) but this – their third voyage into the unknown via coruscating noise and infectious rhythmic drive, and their most powerful and captivating to date. The band themselves clarify their standpoint as “creating a vision of short-term future and trying to find humanity’s place in that world. Coming from Greece, all the futuristic elements take another turn as developments in technology and commerce take time to filter through in peripheral countries and are often skewed.”...

Read the rest here: Backseat Mafia

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Iggor Cavalera gives first plays to new GNOD & João Pais Filipe and Autotelia tracks on NTS show


Iggor Cavalera from Petbrick has presented his second NTS show standing in for Anthony Chalmers (Baba Yaga's Hut) – and on it Iggor gave first plays to GNOD & João Pais Filipe and Autotelia tracks – both from their forthcoming albums.

Listen here: NTS

And preorder the albums here: Bandcamp

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Vice interviews Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs


They say:

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are a heavy band from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the northeast of England. Since 2013, their explosive mutant take on 70s heavy metal has taken them from the Toon to mainland Europe (via Guernsey), to festivals like Arctangent, the Great Escape and Desert Fest.

Their rowdy third album Viscerals came out on April 3rd, 2020 and although it shows progression from previous Pigs records, it still throbs with their unique noise rock/stoner/psych hybrid sound. They’ve got the groove of Black Sabbath, the noise of Unsane and some 80s post-punk thrown in there for good measure.


Their frontman, Matt Baty (who fans will know as the frenzied master of ceremonies, bellowing half-naked onstage, like Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke) also runs Box Records, an underground label home to Luminous Bodies, Blóm and Casual Nun. To top it all off, I know three of them from my childhood in rural North Yorkshire. I had a few beers with them over Zoom and talked about the band, Greggs the bakers and letting our emotions guide us...

Read the full interview here: Vice

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NEOLYD say some words about Kooba Tercu's Proto Tekno


They say:

Kooba Tercu make noise. Nice noise. Ugly noise. And the Greek-English band prefers to mix their noise with danceable grooves and rhythms. How does that sound? Well, like "Proto Tekno". Since not much happens in terms of content due to the stepmotherly handling of text on the album, "Proto Tekno" can best be described in a scenic way: Imagine Kurt Cobain how he penetrates a flute with a fuzz pedal and at the same time rages as if he were rehearsing for one Continuation of "MTV Live and Loud". Two or three bars later, the synths set in, the rhythm changed, and the performance developed into a wave excursion on MDMA.

Despite the dangerous sound experiments, Kooba Tercu wants to give us a clear insight with "Proto Tekno": "There is a certain interplay between old and new, city and country, human civilization and nature, poorly preserved, underdeveloped or disruptive technology and surveillance , Dominance and symbiosis. We explored the space between such dipoles and tried to create a sense of optimism and militancy to face this brave new world. ”


Above all tracks like "Cemento Mori" and "Fair Game" help to convey the contrasts, but also the harmonies of this attempt. The eight songs - some instrumental, some vocal-based - should not only push headbangers, but also dance bears to their receptive limits. "Proto Tekno" flickers like a dark wisp in the fun society.

Read the piece here: NEOLYD

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Rocking.gr makes Koob Tercu's 'Proto Teklno' a 'Rocking Choice' album


They say:

The coumarins of the Athens underground scene are here again with fresh compositions and absurd melodies, reminding all of us that it is the band that the domestic scene needs. The weapon of their charm lies in their ability to extract extreme experimental manifestations from rock and with the help of screams and inimitable compulsive rhythms to make you see the future of rock music with more optimistic eyes.


"Proto Tekno" is therefore Kooba Tercu's new musical step and is the evolution of the improvisational and ecstatic psychedelia that springs from the instinct of these six musicians. Their previous album was weird, strange with sweeping melodies like the ones in the song "Boto", while in "Proto Tekno" you will find tracks that are friendly to a wider range of music ears. You will realize this from the start of the ecstatic "Benzoberry", which contains a punk dirt that offers a few minutes of dance noise to the listener. Tensions during the hearing fluctuate as the drunken jam of "Cemento Mori" follows the fuzzy noise rock character of "Qasan". which was also the harbinger of the band's new album. In particular, "Qasan" means terrified in Somali and may reflect the band's view of the near future in which humanity is trying to find its place, while there is an interaction between the old and the new, the city and the countryside, the human culture and nature, sub-development and technology, domination and coexistence...

Read the rest here: Rocking.gr

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25 May 2020

Tracker Magazine review Kooba Tercu's Proto Tekno


They say:

Turning on a beacon to create a (un) safe path for those who want to navigate this tsunami, the Kooba Tercu owe as much to the Pretty Hate Machine by the Nine Inch Nails and Cop Shoot Cop as to the work of the Can, the filthness and the fury of the post- harcore of the 90s from Unwound and Girls Against Boys as well as the bizarre confluence of chains that were and are the Melvins. And they owe as much to the guitars as they owe to the dance music, but here everything is organic and the electricity really comes from the veins and not from the electronic circuits of the machinery.


If you think that in rock there is nowhere to go and all paths have already been discovered and mapped this is not for you. Kooba - band from Athens branched to Crete and London - may not even be innovating anything, but they behave very badly in keeping with a straight line of rock and weight, that is guaranteed. (And even the question of not innovating is highly debatable). Above all, the idea here is to make as much noise as possible (mission accomplished) and, at the same time, create an avant-garde ambience of underground techno partyin a hyperbaric chamber full of chainsaws, mantras and ambivalence qb (mission more than accomplished) to uncontroll any certainty that one is facing an experimental rock band… or a dancefloor tribaltechno… or noise… or ritual… or industrial… or psychedelic… all here it is highly abnormal. A wet dream of freakness, anger and rebellion by rules and conventions. One of the most exciting discoveries of the year. 

Read the piece here: Tracker Magazine

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New Music Social reviews Kooba Tercu's 'Proto Tekno'


They say:

Those lovely people at Rocket Recordings have an amazing knack of unearthing talent from across the world. Gnoomes from Russia, Och (and others) from Sweden, Lay Llamas from Italy and so on. Their latest offering is Kooba Tercu of Greece and their new album ‘Proto Tekno’ which might just be one of the albums of the year.

Proto Tekno manages to bring together krautrock, psych, industrial, electronica and more in a soundtrack to an imagined dystopia, which they describe as ‘a potent and pulverising collection of incendiary jams fuelled by the modern age yet transcending it with vicious style’. 

The album starts with the thrashy ‘Benzoberry’, a powerful mix of early Dinosaur Jr, Killing Joke and Nirvana submerged in feedback, with the Killing Joke influence continuing in ‘Cemento Mori’ like a present-day ‘War Dance’ having a ruck with the Chemical Brothers.


Filter Feeder provides a change in direction, away from post punk and rock to industrial percussive beats and grinding bass, as a momentary release from the deep immersion, which the powerful dirge Qasan draws you straight back in with its hypnotic tribal drumming and chanting...

Read the rest here: New Music Social

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Big Takeover reviews Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Viscerals


They say:

If you’re gonna call your band Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs (henceforth Pigs x7) as opposed to Pigs Pigs Pigs, or even Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, you’re gonna gain a reputation for excess right out of the gate. To a degree, the British quintet earns it with third LP Viscerals, by virtue of song titles (“Blood and Butter,” “Hell’s Teeth,” “Crazy in Blood”) and the gruesomely weird cover that embodies the album title. The music, however, displays a bit more control. With one hoof in the heavier end of the stoner rock pool a la Electric Wizard, and the other in the realm of postpunk headbangers like Killing Joke, the Newcastle upon Tyne outfit channels aggression into a tight-fisted series of disciplined explosions that are more punch than splatter. “New Body” rumbles like a dinosaur awoken early from hibernation, point man Matt Baly ranting and raving with the clarity of a recently released mental patient. “Reducer” slices off chunks of emotional flesh with devilish precision and an apocalyptic flair, while “Crazy in Blood” twists its anthemic melody into a wild-eyed grind. The record culminates in the nine-minute, 18-wheeler heavy “Halloween Bolson,” which alternates between dissonant tension, pounding release and some snarling boogie. Pigs x7 may truck in excess, but the band focuses it into a disciplined force that’s all the more effective for its steely control.

Read the rest here: Big Takeover 

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22 May 2020

Fuzzy Sun review Proto Tekno by Kooba Tercu


They say:

Psychedelic noise band Kooba Tercu, based in Athens and partly in London, have shared their album Proto Tekno on Rocket Recordings. 


This is quite an impressive album, I believe Kooba Tercy is peaking with their new output. This album is really versatile and full of fun listens. The opener ‘Benzoberry’ is straight in your face noiserock and pumps you up for the rest of the album. ‘Cemento Mori’ switches to eerie experimental fuzz and noise, ‘Filter Feeder’ is something between tribal beats, experimental electronics and fuzz. ‘Qasan’ was the extremely hypnotic track that was shared before the release. Now we are halfway and the goodies keep on coming, this is sounding experimental but with so much variation it is really fun. It is only getting more experimental on ‘Kamehameha’, oriental psych vibes on ‘Fair Game’, Industrial vibes on ‘Boiler’ and the album ends with  ‘Puppy Pile’ wich is again something completely different. Psych, noise, industrial and tribal rhythms, Kooba Tercu throws it all together and makes something gorgeous out of it. You need this in your life.

Read the rest here: Fuzzy Sun

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Kooba Tercu's 'Proto Tekno' released today


"Psychedelic-electro-krautrock trip into the mind" Cvlt Nation
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"Their sound flitting between METZ-esque raucous, fuzzy noise-rock to lengthy, pulsating psych journeys" Birthday Cake For Breakfast
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"The myriad of styles is what appeals most to me and as with a lot of the records I enjoy, warrants repeated listening" Sleeping Shamen
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Today sees the release of Kooba Tercu's album 'Proto Tekno'. It can be purchased on ltd edition coloured vinyl via the the Bandcamp link below, or via your local record shop:

Bandcamp

The album can also be streamed via here: Digital

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‘Proto Tekno’ seamlessly travels from the fuzz-bass headbanger opener ‘Benzoberry’ to the mantric blowout of ‘Qasan’ (assaulting CAN-esque dimensions equal parts caustic and cinematic) and from the sleazy swagger of ‘Cemento Mori’ (redolent of the suave machinations of Girls Against Boys) to the polyrhythmic drive of the ceremonial centrepiece ‘Fair Game’, while maintaining their unique full-throttle intensity and generosity of character. There’s Melvins-style groove to be had on ‘Proto Tekno’ (Kamehameha’) ‘just as much as Beta Band-style songcraft (‘Puppy Pile’) yet these disparate influences coalesce vividly into an invigorating and intimidatingly confident assault on the senses.

‘Proto Tekno’ stands as much as formidable monument to insurrectionary spirit as it does the furious clanguour of six heads in an overheated rehearsal room. It’s a weapon of psychic defence just as much as a love letter to the three ‘R’s of repetition, repetition and repetition. Yet as the ongoing battle against adversity gathers momentum, one thing is for certain - you’ll want Kooba Tercu on your side.


Sadly the bands planned UK live dates have all unsurprisingly been cancelled, but they will definitely be back over once this current situation has an end in sight and venues know when they can reopen.

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21 May 2020

Sputnik Music reviews Sex Swing's Type II


They say:

Type II is the kind of thing you would find lurking fathoms below the ocean, in a dark uncharted abyss. It's an oddly-shaped mass adorned with the remains of melted crystals, shimmering in the blackness. Its base is made up of the liquefied remains of different minerals, with an oily sheen and other unidentifiable components like possibly fish entrails. It salivates and oozes from its misshapen glands when plucked from its habitat and dropped onto the examination table. It unsettles the *** out of you, but you can't look away.


Ponderings of possible meanings behind repulsive clumps of organic and inorganic substances aside; Sex Swing are a sextet composed of musicians from all over the UK's underground circles. This includes acts like Dethscalator, Bonnacons of Doom, Mugstar, and even guitarist Jodie Cox who played guitar on Earth's previous studio album Primitive and Deadly. The collective's musical style can be distilled down to a discordant blend of noise rock and psychedelia, sometimes mixing their own jagged version of krautrock's rhythmic repetition into the mix. Add in some blasts of free improv saxophone curteousy of the excellent Colin Webster, and that's Sex Swing's sound in a nutshell. That's discounting some elements of no wave that crop up here and there, but that's mostly relevant to the band's self-titled debut album that was released through The Quietus Phonographic Corporation back in 2016...

Read the rest here: Sputnik Music

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Sleeping Shamen reviews Kooba Tercu's 'Proto Tekno'


They say:

Having joined Instagram a couple of months ago, I started following Rocket Recordings and one of the acts they showcased on there was Kooba Tercu, The snippets I caught piqued my interest so I decided to give them a shot having reviewed and enjoyed the most recent releases from Pigs x 7 and Sex Swing.


The band are from Athens though members are also located in Crete and London. They are led by Johnny Tercu, and feature members of Casual Nun and Echo Canyon. Proto Tekno is their third album and their first on Rocket Recordings following last year’s release Kharrüb. The cover art is roots of a tree laying waste to a building built in the Greek classical style. This could symbolise the band’s music destroying staid musical conventions...

Read the rest here: Sleeping Shamen

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20 May 2020

NME and Normans say some words about Sex Swing's Type II


They say:

NME:
‘Valentine’s Day at the Gym’, the brilliantly-titled lead single from the new album by the equally memorably named Sex Swing, sounds a bit like a demented version of Interpol at first, before it burst into pure fury. If it’s anything to go by, then ‘Type II’ will be quite a ride.

Norman Records:

Gifted in the art of turning rage and volume into emotional catharsis in musical form, Sex Swing return with a second studio album. Again forged with the help of members of underground stars from Bonnacons of Doom to Dethscalator, Type II transcends the pitfalls often associated with the ‘supergroup’.

Read the piece here: NME

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Birthday Cake for Breakfast streams Kooba Tercu album 'Proto Tekno' in full


This Friday sees the release of 'Proto Tekno' the killer new album by Kooba Tercu and the lovely folks at Birthday Cake for Breakfast are exclusively streaming the album in full from now.

So if you can't wait until Friday, listen here: Birthday Cake for Breakfast

'Proto Tekno' can be preordered on ltd edition colour vinyl from here or your local record shop: Bandcamp

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Reverb is for Lovers reviews Sex Swing – Type II


They say:

Sex Swing comes together every few years . The debut was in 2016, now follows " Type II " (Rocket Recordings). The members are active in various bands. They all have a preference for the loud. The name dropping: Mugstar, Dead Neanderthals, Deathscalator, IDLES.

The bands are known for hard music of various forms. With Sex Swing, this mixes with dark heavy rock with industrial bonds. Bulky is cut up by noise, songs build up to chaos forever.

The British don't just shoot at it. They structure every song conscientiously. It sounds a bit like Grinderman or Birthday Party. We only find seven songs, but they are varied and carefully built.

"The Passover" opens up dark and powerful, sets the relentless and demanding tone. "Skimmington Ride" flows a little more, churning it up a lot.

"Valentine's Day at the Gym" is probably most clearly Nick Cave, a seething track. A sweaty saxophone drives on “Betting Shop”, while “La Riconada” stomps on stoically. Finally "Garden of Eden - 2000 AD" is slowly working towards destruction.

See the review here: Reverb is for Lovers

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19 May 2020

Beats Per Minute reviews Sex Swing's Type II


They say:

The UK’s psych-noise scene is in incredibly rude health at present. Luminous Bodies, Casual Nun, The Cosmic Dead and Rainbow Grave are all leading lights in creating pulverising and mesmeric, beautiful and sweaty pandemonium fuelled by uppers and tonic wine. Sex Swing always seemed like something of an anomaly. An underground supergroup initially consisting of members of Mugstar, Bonnacons of Doom, Part Chimp, Dethscalator and others, they ran the risk of being considered as nothing other than an also-ran side project. Their eponymously titled debut album from 2016 was decent without being as wonderful as many reviewers would have you believe. Type II, however, is a total baller of a record that sets a new bar for the scene that inebriates itself.


Guitars cascade like sheets of ice, drums pound like the beating heart of the near-drowned and Dan Chandler summons the vocal spirits of Pete Murphy and Michael Gira to create an entirely compelling, seductive and hypnotic record that feels like it could have been conceived in goth nightclub The Batcave in the early 1980s. It’s an astonishing, breathless album that tantalises as it pulverises and smashes you into the floor with its sheer feral weight of ferocity...

Read the rest here: Beats Per Minute

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18 May 2020

The Fragmented Flâneur reviews Sex Swing's Type II album


They say:

It took me quite a while to appreciate the first Sex Swing album. With the exception of a couple of tracks, it felt like it was just the wrong side of accessible for me. However, a bit of perseverance and a couple of live performances later and I was on board.

I am always happy to be challenged by a record and really like it when I can come to appreciate it… In hindsight I would probably say that the band’s debut was also about these musicians from disparate bands coming together and feeling their way to a certain extent.


However, if that was the case I think that the band have really clicked with this sophomore release. The intensity of the playing has definitely gone up and I don’t know whether or not the first one softened me up, but this album felt coherent from the first moment I heard it...

Read the rest here: The Fragmented Flâneur

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The Boosh Zone gives Sex Swing album 4.5/5 review

They say:

Well here we go again I suppose.

That point in the year where I find that one Noise Rock record that blows my mind, defies all expectations, and has my ears bleeding. Sex Swing’s latest release, Type II, is an excellent collection of psychedelic brain-melters that wastes no time and trims all fat.


The production is excellent, especially considering just instrumentally layered this album is. There is space for everyone, from saxophones to synths. All of this is necessary to warp the usual Noise Rock edge into a more Heavy Psych lane. This album emits a crazy amount of power that is hard to put into words, my ears almost feel the weight of the potential and kinetic energy of the music. I love the use of saxophone prominently across the record in place of guitar solos, it really separates this group from the pack...

Read the rest here: The Boosh Zone

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Turn-Up The Volume makes Sex Swing its Album Of The Day


They say:

SEX SWING is a London-based post-punk band with members of implicitly trusted yet sonically nefarious outfits Mugstar, Part Chimp, Earth, Dethscalator & Dead Neanderthals. They just unleashed their new ghastly longplayer ‘TYPE II‘. Without a shadow of a doubt
a contender for album of the year. Why?

Because TYPE II is the fitting Doomsday soundtrack for these science-fiction-like times

we live in. Musically as well as lyrically it’s a wall-crushing monster that infiltrates your messed-up, coronavirus fearing mind. A malignant record you can’t turn off once it blasts out of your speakers because its hypnotic and dark-psychedelic mysticism creeps under your fingernails without asking permission and stays there for 39 bloodcurdling minutes...

Read the rest here: Turn-Up The Volume

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15 May 2020

Listen to Mike Bournes Lockdown solo set


If you missed Mike Bourne from Teeth of the Sea's  lockdown show last week well don't fear, he has put the whole thing here for you to listen too here:

Bandcamp

He says:

"Individual tracks from last week’s live show now on bandcamp for your bangingacidkrautrockdrumnbass pleasure! Track 3’s a sort-of-cover of a Hey Colossus number, ya know."

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Psychedelic Baby Magazine interviews Centrum


They say:

För Meditation by Centrum is an outstanding debut by this Gothenburg outfit. Centrum is the musical equivalent of mantra practice.

Who’s behind Centrum? 

So Centrum is me Kalle (harmonium, guitar, bass, bouzouki, flutes, vocals, recorder, tape delay, mixing), Simon (drums, tambourine, vocals, flute, percussion, production, mixing), Axel (violin) and Baba (flute).

Simon has mostly played with different indie acts and recorded stuff, mostly his own stuff. He has also been working on a Musical Salmon Odyssey. It is not yet finished, but it sounds quite amazing. It deals with the mating cycles among other things. Symphonic Prog.


I am a member of Hills and I am also a member of Weary Nous. Both these bands are on a kind of a hiatus and who knows why and for how long really… But it’s a good thing, life goes on! New projects have risen from the ashes and we had some great years with Hills and did some good jams and fiestas and met and befriended beautiful people, what more can you ask for really? I am so grateful for that time, but life goes on. Music, at least for me, has to keep evolving much like life. Or it becomes pointless. The heart has to be in what I do musically 100% or there is no point...

Read the full piece here: Psychedelic Baby Magazine

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Spectrum Culture reviews igs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs' Viscerals


They say:

Among the top of the heap for purveyors of skull-rattling, chrome-plated rock.

From the outset, on their krautrocky 2017 debut, Feed the Rats, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs established themselves as a major voice in the current psych-rock revival. The group tightened their jamming for King of Cowards, a record that sounded like an alternate timeline where Lemmy started Motörhead first and poached the members of Hawkwind to back him; the LP confirmed the dual-guitar team of Sam Grant and Adam Ian Sykes as the finest riffmeisters since Matt Pike, blending stoner rock, galloping metal and crushing psychedelia into a focused blast. Viscerals sharpens the band’s songwriting even further, trimming songs down to their most effective, grooving just long enough to hammer in the perfection of their riffs before moving on to the next crushing number.

“Reducer” launches out of the gate with a trad metal drum pattern that quickly explodes into a mid-tempo roar of psych-doom. As one guitar surges through a riff, another lets loose a shrieking lead that hangs over Matt Baty’s bullish vocals. “Ego kills everything,” he barks later in the song, though the philosophical is prefaced by the literal in his earlier screams of “I want air.” Running a breezy four-and-a-half minutes compared to the previous album’s six-minute opener, “Reducer” nonetheless shows off just how tight the band has become, swinging through numerous key and tempo changes, including a seismic, primal concrete sledge breakdown...

Read the rest here: Spectrum Culture

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Sex Swing album ' Type II' is released today


"What makes Sex Swing so powerful is that they transcend the limitations of psychedelic rock." Album of the Week / The Quietus

"Order and chaos rule" 8/10 / Loud and Quiet

"Brisk blast of extreme frequencies to blow the darkness out of your psyche." 
Clash Magazine

"Creates heartrate-raising anxiety, but one you don’t want to drag yourself away from." Get into This

"You’re left salivating for more" The Sleeping Shamen

"We need bands like Sex Swing right now." Echoes and Dust

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Today sees the release of Sex Swing's new album 'Type II' It can be bought on CD and LP on Ltd 'Blue/Grey Splatter' from here: 

Bandcamp

Or you can also buy ltd edition 'Cream/Grey Swirl' and 'Frosted Clear' LPs from your local record shops.

Since their foundation in 2014, this malevolent rogues gallery of luminaries of the UK underground have consistently proven to be capable of projecting vibrations that transcend and usurp any idea of the sum of their component parts. Between them the individual band members have clocked up notable experience sparking tinnitus appearing in bands such as Mugstar, Bonnacons Of Doom, Earth, Dethscalator, Dead Neanderthals and now even IDLES. 

As expected the bands planned live shows for May and June have all being rescheduled, the new dates are: 

30 Oct / BE / Kortrjik / The Pit's
31 Oct / NL / Amsterdam / OCCII
03 Nov / FR / Paris / Espace B
04 Nov / DE / Koln / MTC
05 Nov / BE / Antwerp / Het Bos
06 Nov / UK / Bristol / Crofters Rights
07 Nov / UK / Liverpool / Kazimier Stockroom
21 Nov / UK / Newcastle upon Tyne / The Cluny

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14 May 2020

Sam from Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs tells Birthday Cake for Breakfast 'What is on my iPod'


They say:

Here at Birthday Cake For Breakfast, we like to get to the heart of what an artist is all about. We feel the music they listen to is just as important as the music they make. With that in mind, we’re delighted to have Sam Grant, guitarist in the skull-crushing Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, talking us through five releases that helped shape and inspire their latest album ‘Viscerals‘!...

Read the rundown here: Birthday Cake for Breakfast

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