Rocket Recordings

Teeth of the Sea play show with Pontiak and Trieste

2012-01-27T09:54:00.003Z

Teeth of the Sea have just announced a new show with the great Pontiak and Trieste at their new 'home' the Lexington. The show will take place on March 14th, and expect a possible first hearing of some new material.

ANTHROPROPHH presents VACUUM BRISTOL CULT HORROR GORE

2012-01-24T09:12:00.002Z

Here is an unfinished 1989 short film that stars and soundtracked by ANTHROPROPHH:

Here is what we have been told about it:

"From 1989, in the early 70s four drop-outs find a vacumm from hell with predictable consequences. This non-video nastie was never completed. Directed by J Mead. Written by P Allen and J Mead and starring them along with Peter Thomas,Mark Lock (who did the artwork), Lisa Allen and Mark Palmer."

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Drowned In Sound review Teeth of the Sea's 'REAPER' performance

2012-01-23T11:00:00.006Z

Drowned In Sound review Teeth of the Sea's 'REAPER' performance

A quiet Sunday night torn apart by cannibalism, car chases and cosmic disco? Go on, then. London band Teeth of the Sea have already made a name for themselves among people who like their cochleas and minds a little shattered – their 2010 album Your Mercury took the psychedelic, sci-fi visions of postrock and krautrock and rolled them into a heaving, gargantuan whole to do just that. In the flesh at the Lexington, ready to deliver more of the same, the TOTS lads are so sharp and wiry you wonder where the catacombs could possibly lie within – but they do........

read the whole gig review here

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Goat preach their 'Swedish Voodoo' via a new blog

2012-01-18T18:19:00.002Z

The magnificent Goat have launched a blog to keep the world updated about their voodoo ways.

View the blog here

And don't forget the release of their debut 7" on Rocket is out on February 13th, you can pre-order it from these great places:

Piccadilly
Rough Trade
Cargo

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1st official sighting of the Goatman!

2012-01-16T12:03:00.006Z

Mission Control have just received our first copies of the new 7 inch by Goat, its a cracker, so snap your's up when they are released on the 13th of February.

Artist: Goat
Title: Goatman
Tracks: Goatman / The Sun The Moon
Format: 7"
Quantity: 300 (100 x red / 200 x black)
Catalogue no: Launch045
Release date: 13th February 2012

Teeth of the Sea - REAPER

2012-01-16T11:03:00.002Z

Mission Control are still shaking from the onslaught of sound and visuals at last nights

REAPER performance by the always amazing Teeth of the Sea.

The band's performance was mind blowing and they presented something that pushed the boundaries of contemporary psychedelia and once again showed why they are one of the best and most interesting live bands in the UK at the moment.

Thanks to Brancage, London Short Film Festival and to The Quietus for giving more people the chance to see this amazing piece of work.

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Anthroprophh debut album to come out on Rocket

2012-01-13T13:22:00.004Z

We are extremely excited to announce the debut album by Anthroprophh will be released on Rocket later in the year. Anthroprophh is the solo project from Paul Allen, the guitarist from The Heads and from the demo's we have heard it is gonna be a killer album. Paul's trademark Fuzz-Wah abuse and Karoli soloing underpins some great grooved-out kosmiche raga's and space rock repetition. The full details of the album are still to be clarified, but watch this space for more information. ---

Black Tempest launches a Space Opera

2012-01-13T08:49:00.006Z

Friend of Rocket 'Black Tempest' has launched an ambitious but interesting sci-fi audio pod cast called 'Space Opera'.

This is what Black Tempest say's about the project:

Space Opera is an wild idea I had for a cross between an audio book, a psychedelic musical, a podcast and an improvised science fiction story. A number of people have said that Black Tempest’s music would make a great film soundtrack, but no-one has ever offered me a film to work on! So instead I thought I’d make a sci-fi movie for the ears. Audio books have become increasingly ubiquitous in recent times, but as far as I’m aware no-one has tried to make a more immersive environmental audio book with a soundtrack.

Each episode so far (I’ve got another couple in the can in advance) has been written as a pretty free stream of consciousness, and I haven’t worked out any plot lines or story arcs in advance – I intend to let it gain a life of its own, and to see where it takes me.

As the blog looked a bit plain, and I’m not really a visual artist, I’ve also decided to try to get guest artists involved to illustrate the episodes on the website. An amazing artist friend of mine from the States, David Longey, has provided an image for the first episode which I’ve now posted on the site, and he’s just sent me another for the second part. I really hope this aspect of the site takes off and that I get a few artists involved, as it makes it more of a community effort, not to mention adding a bit of eye candy!

In time I’d like to broaden this out further, perhaps using guest musicians, guest script writers or maybe even videos – I’m open to any collaborative ideas people want to throw in my direction.

See Black Tempest's 'Space Opera' here

Buy Black Tempest's music here

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The Heads archive CD: Enten - Eller

2012-01-10T10:51:00.005Z

The Heads 'Rock Prof' is currently complying another retrospective called ‘Enten - Eller’.

Limited to a 100 copies, the CD will contain 3 lengthy intense jams from 2005.

The artwork direction is a homage to the Harvest label with a gatefold sleeve.

Please email The HEADS at rockprof30@blueyonder.co.uk to reserve a copy, this will be the last archive CD for a while, so snap them up fast.

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The Quietus feature on Teeth of the Sea's REAPER

2012-01-09T10:50:00.003Z

The Quietus have written an amazing piece on the up and coming Reaper performance by Teeth of the Sea.

Read it here

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Teeth of the perform Reaper at the London Short Film Festival

2012-01-06T08:50:00.003Z

As recently reported Teeth of the Sea are bringing 'Reaper' to the stage for a second and 'last ever' time as part of the London Short Film Festival.

This 'not to be missed' event is taking place at the Lexington in London on 15th January.

Here is what the LSF say about the event
See what The Quietus have to say about it
Plus read what Dazed and Confused thought about the last time they performed it

And you can buy a ticket for what will be a sold out night here

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Gnod dropout with White Hills 23rd best album sleeve of 2011

2012-01-05T13:34:00.002Z

Thanks to your voting, Gnod - Gnod dropout with White Hills has made number 23 in the Art Vinyl best album sleeves of the year. Being one of the nominated 50 was great but being in the top half is fantastic, so thanks again, your support of Rocket is greatly appreciated.

See the full list here

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Happy New Year

2012-01-05T13:27:00.004Z

Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks for making 2011 a great year for Rocket.

We have some exciting up-and-coming releases to mention including the release on Feb 13th of the 7" by the amazing Goat. This will be followed by their debut album and (hopefully) UK tour later in the year.

Also we have the long overdue debut album by Big Naturals and a very exciting Heads release which should be seeing the light of day in 2012, plus Paul Allen, Heads guitarist solo project Antthroprophh.

Plus after last years Collisions LP with Mugstar and Oneida we have another great one being primed in the lab as we speak.

And finally, we are very excited to announce that Teeth of the Sea are about to go into the studio to record their third album for us, and we are very excited indeed to say, it is gonna be a corker!!!

Stay tuned.

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Rocket Probes December 2011 Playlist

2011-12-30T20:43:00.009Z

Anthroprophh - Zeit des alten Mannes / Myalistic ???
(The Heads 'Rock Prof' getting into some serious Kraut inspired Can/Ra, listen: Zeit / Myalistic)

Black Tempest - Supernormal
(3cd album of BT's set at Supernormal and rehearsal jams...Kosmiche wonderfulness)

Sun Araw - Ancient Romans
(Latest album of psyched out, dubbed out, groove rock)

Mugstar - Serra (Robert Hampson mixes)
(How essential is this record!!!!)

The Fall - Are you are the missing
(Another great album of fuzz repetition, especially on the track Crop-dust)

NoMeansNo - Wrong
(Haven't listened to this album in many many many years, since i lent it out in the early/mid 90's and never got it back but great to pick up a cheap copy and give it a good spin once again!! Still a seriously good fun listen)

Cage & Aviary - Migration
(Our favourite dubbed out, acid effected, cosmic disco heads finally land their album...if you have heard their Teeth of the Sea, **k and Gnod remixes, you have an idea of what to expect)

Blue Phantom - Violence
(Fuzz guitars and frantic drumming combine to make a sound like the Cooper band!!...taken from the fuzzy prog album Distortions)

Neil Campbell - Sol Powr

(Finnish label Lal Lal Lal's minimal Krautjam)

3 Leafs - Titular Lines

(Hypnotic Bitches Brewing psyche)

Von Himmel - Space Communion

(Experimental Kraut in a BBC Radiophonic Workshop Cluster)

Alice Cooper Band - Love it to Death / Killer

(Check out 'Black Ju Ju' live at the Cincinnati Pop Festival online & realise what a mistake it was to sack your band)

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Teeth of the Sea play 'God don't like it' mini festival

2011-12-20T18:08:00.005Z

Promoters 'God don't like it' are calling it a day and are putting on four nights at the Lexington in London as a farewell.

Rocket's very own Teeth of the Sea are playing one of these nights on December 28th

You can buy tickets here

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GNOD appear in NME ‘Most Underrated’ album list 2011

2011-12-16T19:47:00.005Z

GNOD appear in the NME's 2011 ‘Most Underrated’ album list. The list features 'Ingnodwetrust' (Rocket Recordings) and 'Chaudelande Vol. 1' (Tamed Records) & we couldn't agree more, who doesn't love GNOD, GNOD is love!

"Manchester 2011: if you weren't on the endless chase for a slew of smoke-and-mirror acts sneaking around the Victorian back streets and grubby suburbs of their city, then you were feverishly buying up all remaining stocks of flares and parkas in anticipation of The Stone Roses' multi-million making return. This is, of course, what Manchester will be best known for this year, but unfairly, as proven by this brace of albums from Gnod, the north west's premiere far-reaching psychedelic troupe. Firstly with the Rocket Recordings-released 'Ingnodwetrust' Gnod sought to melt minds methodically, 'Tony's First Communion' stretching to over 20 minutes of gradually swirling echoes and half-caught vocals, a stoic one-note bassline keeping all at bay; 'Vatican' dragged the intensity further with slowcore riffs bludgeoning the senses into the darkest depths. Then, following the group's decampment to Chaudelande, France, they really let loose: 'Volume 1' the ensuring collection of recordings from a drug-fuelled few days, boasts riffs charred to within an inch of their life and the wildness of their motorik threatening to tear throbbing limb from limb when transferred live. In my opinion, if you wanted to focus on WU LYF's pre-determined theatrics then you're welcome to them; but it was Gnod who who provided a snapshot of the city's real core."

Read the full NME list here

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Revolt of the Apes interviews GNOD

2011-12-15T14:32:00.003Z

The great 'Revolt of the Apes' have just published an awesome interview with the mighty Gnod.

Read it here

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Teeth of the Sea to play British Wildlife Festival in Leeds

2011-12-12T19:00:00.003Z

Teeth of the Sea are playing this great festival called British Wildlife at the Brudnell Social Club in Leeds on March 3rd. They will be playing alongside fellow cosmic travellers like Hookworms, Hey Colossus and Zun Zun Egui.

More information and tickets for the festival can be found here

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Swedish band Hills unleash a new blog

2011-12-12T18:49:00.002Z

Our second favourite band from Sweden (after Goat) have put a little blog together for all things about the band and for a reference place for 'discovered' fuzz, psych and general weirdness.

Check it out here:

http://hillsbg.blogspot.com/

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Teeth of the Sea bring 'Reaper' to London

2011-12-12T18:40:00.004Z

We are very excited to announce that Teeth of the Sea are bringing their live soundtrack 'Reaper' to the Lexington on January 15th.

For those who don't know, he band have written a unique 45 minute piece of music to accompany a reworking of the film 'Doomsday' which the band edited themselves. They performed this live soundtrack in the summer at the amazing Brancage festival, and due to the requests from fans and an invite from the London Short Film festival, the band have agreed to perform this amazing sound and visual experience on a stage just 'one more time'.

Click here for more information about the show.

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Rocket label feature in December's Rock-a-Rolla

2011-12-12T16:04:00.006Z

We are excited to announce that there is a label feature on Rocket Recordings in the latest issue of the excellent Rock a Rolla magazine.

They asked us some great questions about the label, our history, influences, most important releases etc and is a nice companion piece to the other recent interview we did for Optical Sounds magazine

Click here for or more information or to order your copy of Rock a Rolla

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The Watcher - The Cult Of Dom Keller

2011-12-09T19:16:00.003Z

The Watcher

The Cult Of Dom Keller

In this day and age when there seems to be more than a few bands that worship Spacemen 3/ (((Loop))) that come out sounding way to sanitised for my taste thank the lord for these acid fried mothers that go by the name of The Cult Of Dom Keller. Listening to there collection of self released 3 EP's may induce an acid flashback as exploding colour, fuzz and reverb flood from the speakers as The Cult Of Dom Keller beam into the outer limits of your brain with beautiful dirges of bone shaking intensity. Dom Keller have been on the go for a few years now but as this band have developed into a killer psych outfit par excellence it seems at last people are starting to take notice. All we need now is for some label to do the right and proper thing and get these freak outs on vinyl - seems that might be happening in the very near future.

Links

cultofdomkeller.bigcartel

THE-CULT-OF-DOM-KELLER

David C (Optical Sounds)

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White Hills: Heads on Fire - Popmatters review

2011-12-09T19:02:00.002Z

White Hills - Heads on Fire (Popmatters Review)
(Rocket Recordings; US: 8 Nov 2011; UK: 24 Oct 2011)

By Craig Hayes 9 December 2011

Supernova delights guaranteed.

Heads on Fire was the second album from space rock overlords White Hills. Long out of print, it’s been recently reissued on CD via the band’s original label, Rocket Recordings. White Hills have since gone on to record a number of acclaimed releases for label Thrill Jockey—all of which are well worth listening to—but Heads on Fire takes us back to when the band was taking its first steps into the chimerical void.

Drifting along a cosmically inclined spectrum of Kraut, space, psych and fuzzed out, reverb-heavy rock, White Hills are ardent peddlers of sublimely extraterrestrial wares. Beginning with the swirling synth and rolling, buzzing riffs of “Radiate”, Heads on Fire moves from one frenzied, corkscrewing solo to the next, with accompanying flourishes of exuberant percussion, thumping bass and beautifully warped keyboards. With a focus on the heavier, grittier aspects of space rock, White Hills toss out some thoroughly wicked and no doubt illicitly-inspired jams. “Ocean of Sounds” resonates with chanted vocal lines and huge, raw riffs. “Visions of the Past, Present and Future” is pure psychotropic madness, smothered in corpulent dollops of Hawkwind-like instability, and the 26-minute “Don’t Be Afraid” works its way towards its constellational climax with passages of twirling ambience and plenty of wah-wah lunacy. It’s a supernova delight, to say the least, and it’s gloriously hypnotic.

If you’re a fan of Wooden Shjips, Nebula, Cave, OM or Gnod you’d do well to check this out, although I’m guessing you already have. For the uninitiated, Heads on Fire is the perfect place to begin your journey into the endless galaxies of psychedelic rock.

Read & listen white-hills-heads-on-fire

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Big Naturals & Anthroprophh Live

2011-12-08T10:21:00.002Z

Celebrate the coming celestial festival at 'Kings Square Art Space' Bristol for a rare outing of 'The Heads' Rock Prof's side project Anthroprophh and future Rocket collaborators Big Naturals.

Expect a large amount of buzzing bass amps, electronic fuzzed weaponry, gold, frankincense and myrrh!

Join us on the 15th of December and prepare to have 12 days of ear ringing.

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Introducing the "Voodoo Magic" of Goat

2011-12-02T17:27:00.002Z

We are extremely excited to announce the forthcoming release of ‘Goatman’, the debut 7” by the band Goat.

Goat are a collective who hail from a small and very remote village called Korpolombolo in deepest darkest Sweden.

Legend has it that for centuries, the inhabitants of the village of Korpolombolo were dedicated to the worship and practices of Voodoo.

This strange and seemingly unlikely activity was apparently introduced into the area after a travelling witch doctor and a handful of her disciples were led to Korpolombolo by following a cipher hidden within their most sacred of ancient scriptures.

The reason it led them there is unknown, but their Voodoo influence quickly took hold over the whole village and so they made it their home - there, they were able to practice their craft unnoticed and unbothered for several centuries.

This was until their non-Christian ways were discovered by the Church and they were burned out by the crusaders, the survivors cursing the village over their shoulders as they fled.

To this day, the now picturesque village of Korpolombolo is still haunted by this Voodoo curse; the power of the curse can be felt throughout the grooves of this Goat record.

The record which is released on February 13th is a limited two track 7”, that features the tracks‘Goatman’ and ‘The Sun and the Moon’ and is a precursor to a full length album which will be launched later in the year.

Here is a great video of the track ‘Goatman’:

And here is what some people have already said about 'Goatman':

"Goatman made me pull my shirt off and start quoting Predator 2: “Voodoo magic. Fucking voodoo magic, man!”
John Doran (The Quietus)

“The sound of giant crystal meteorites being fired out from the black hole of a new psychedelic mass -INCREDIBLE!”
Cherrystones (Brutal Music)

“Tremendous heavy afro psych funk with killer fuzz-wah guitars, stonking afro percussion and furious afro voice”
Optical Sounds

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Artist: Goat

Title: Goatman

Tracks: Goatman / The Sun The Moon

Format: 7"

Quantity: 300 (100 x red / 200 x black)

Catalogue no: Launch045

Release date: 13th February 2012

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Planet 'O' - When Heads Collide - A Rocket Interview with Oneida

2011-12-02T07:58:00.027Z

The following interview was 1st published in 'Optical Sounds' fanzine (Issue 3) here

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CHRIS FROM ROCKET RECORDINGS SENDS OUT A SIGNAL TO PLANET ‘O’ AND HERE IS WHAT WAS TRANSMITTED BACK:
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(Thanks to everyone & anyone not credited for the photo's)

CHRIS ROCKET: When we first started reading about you in mags like Careless Talk Costs Lives and Loose Lips Sink Ships, the journalists always found it important to mention you were from NY and part of the so called 'Brooklyn scene', do you think the influence of NYC was integral to the Oneida sound?

KID: Well back in the day we lied to the UK journalists about the scene. There was something - but we blew it out of proportion in order to stoke the interest. That said - the Careless Talk piece was the 2nd wave of the Oneida press. We got a ton of big features written about us when Enemy Hogs came out in 1999. Our label at the time, Turnbuckle, had hired a promotion guy in the UK who was very good. He pitched features for us in so many fucking magazines. . .the other thing that Turnbuckle was doing was flying journalists over and putting them up in NY hotels. . .so there was a bit of payola involved. The journalists got a free trip to NYC and then they agreed to spend some time with Oneida. But to Oneida's credit - once they were here we kind of kicked their asses. We got good at blowing minds. . .

So anyway - when we started there was no scene. There were a few monthly parties, a few art spaces and no venues in Brooklyn. There were no bands who were excited about the same music we dug - UK Glam, Detroit Proto punk, Cleveland punk, Krautrock. . .etc. . .

We also saw how pointless it was to play the shitty dive bars in order to "make it". . .I had worked at the Knitting Factory so I had no illusions about the cynicism of the club environments. . .so we just forged our own path through the city, playing spots where people were already partying. We also played shows, had Turnbuckle buy us a keg and serve free beer. So yeah - people came to have a cheap, fun time. That was how our reputation was built in the beginning. We also knew that no one would give a shit about our band for about 5-6 years. . .we were right!

It wasn't until the 2nd wave of press about Brooklyn hit that we started to meet the bands that we apparently shared a scene with like Black Dice. . .I mean we're friends now - but. . .back then it was pretty pixelated.

BARRY: I think that NY influences us as much as anything else influences us, I mean there are moments where there are things we've done musically where I feel like "oh this is like the noise from the construction work outside of my apt", but I also feel as if alot of what happens with us happens in a space that we make of our own musically, a place we all end up going together.

BOBBY: The idea of a “NYC influence” is murky and imprecise. Looking at NY’s musical history, you’d have to incorporate nearly every facet of popular (and anti-popular) music in order to make a case for an “NYC sound.” However, the experience of living and playing in New York, and Brooklyn in particular, has certainly been integral to our experience as a group and as creative-minded individuals, simply because we’re surrounded by multitudes of similarly-inclined people. While there are certainly plenty of folks who view New York as a springboard to success or cultural acceptance of some kind, there’s also a substantial population interested in the idea of creative community – those who want nothing more than to bend their energy ceaselessly toward some kind of vision, and who revel in the fact that there are others who share this drive – no matter if the eventual product seems related or wholly individual. We’ve done our best to make use of this very real possibility of community, and it’s a point of pride for me that I’ve been a part of some category of successful idealism. That’s pretty tough to manage in most contexts, especially sustained over a long period – and Brooklyn has proven a fertile ground for this.

SHAHIN: As somebody who whose own band Ex Models shared many a handbill with Oneida back in the day, only to be asked to join them years later, I offer myself as definitive, irrefutable, mystery-dismantling, conclusive Proof that the Brooklyn Scene provided demonstrable—even quantifiable--Influence on the Oneida Sound.

JANE: Well, the influence of the NYC/Brooklyn thing had more to do with the community that we had outside of music. Brooklyn mattered because it was where we all lived, in close proximity. Brooklyn was where our parties were, where our friends were. The proximity allowed us to drop in on things and feel organic and casual about playing and socializing in a way we had experienced in school, where many of us first met, and in a way that we would not have known how to access in Manhattan.

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CHRIS ROCKET: I remember the first time i witnessed you live at the Buffalo Bar in London, you started with a 30 minute version of Sheets of Easter that totally blew my head off, i remember turning around and seeing more scared faces than smiling faces, though that track has become your most revered track, why do you think people have taken to it so much and want to hear it every time you play?

KID: I think people responded to it because it's such a simple and inevitable idea. The music was already there - we just played it.

BARRY: People like sheets because it's rad.

BOBBY: It’s beyond my powers, at least, to figure out how and why people experience/consume our music the way they do. I have always believed completely in the power and meaning of Oneida’s music, even in its most casual and ambiguous presentations. I’m not surprised, I guess, that sometimes it’s challenging for people to feel the same way about it as I do, but by the same token I’m not surprised when it seems as though people are moved by it, or swept up in it…I just can’t predict effectively, and I’ve been pretty successful at not trying too hard to sweat this. Let me be clear: “Sheets of Easter” is an amazing composition, and we are a bad-ass band; so I guess that’s why people like it….right now, anyway.

JANE: Maybe people like it because they like to see us work hard. Naw, that can’t be it. It’s probably because music fans don’t really like notes very much and ‘Sheets’ has very few notes. We are awfully kind to our listeners. That’s the way of the O.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Do each of you have a personal favourite Oneida track, be it one you are proud of or just one you love to play live?

KID: I have lots of tracks I'm proud of that I think get short shrift. . .for instance I think Enemy Hogs is a triumph. It rocks, it's catchy, and it's hilarious. Each record I think stands on its own - and I'm proud of them all. . .right now I love improvising live - that's kind of where my head is at. Songs are not as interesting to me anymore - I mean we beat songs into the ground for 11 years and our fans are fucking rad - there aren't a ton of them - plus they seem to hang tight even when we do outrageous things. . .so I believe our fans can handle the improvising phase of Oneida. . .it's this weird broken band kind of thing that I don't think has a precedent. . .or well whatever who knows. I'm excited about it.

BARRY: Gosh, I love so many tracks, uh, I think I really like it when we play what's up jackal live and pull it off. I love playing all of Pre-teen too.

BOBBY: That’s an interesting question. I guess I might have favorites from time to time, but they’re usually circumstantial – not permanent favorites, but just tunes that I’m feeling at a given moment for some reason. Often, I’m remembering the recording or composition process fondly or with pride – maybe some risky decision or performance idea that worked out, maybe some accident of chance that pulled a song together, maybe a vision perfectly (or accidentally) realized – right now, the first thing that pops to mind is “History’s Great Navigators” from our album “Happy New Year” – it’s just something that was fun as hell to record, came out of a variety of perspectives and attempts, something we reconfigured in various ways for live performance…just a flexible composition that was written around some ideas that turned out to be maybe more lasting than I thought at the time.

JANE: I have lots of O songs that I love: some for playing some for listening. Big 5: 1) Human Factor, 2) Town Crier, 3) New Head, 4) Sneak Into the Woods, 5) Hard Workin’ Man.

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CHRIS ROCKET: I chatted to Kid after the last Ocropolis show at Minehead and even though he said it was an amazing experience he also said it will be a long time until you try that again as it takes too much out of you...but there you are, doing it again at the next NY ATP curated by Portishead, what was the lure, and who do you hope will join you on stage?

KID: Its such an amazing experience - on a personal level. To overcome all your anxieties about generating material, to play with your idols (like Mike Watt) and to acquit yourself decently. . .all this stuff adds up. It has informed the next phase of the band. . .the Ocropolis performances are Oneida. . .it's the truest form of the band we can present. In terms of who might join us in Atlantic City? It's a little early to tell. . .but definitely Aaron Mullan of Tall Firs - he's been a part of every one so far - we can't break the chain!

BARRY: Why does a man climb a mountain? Because it's there. It's hard to do, there's a lot that has to go into doing it, it's physically and emotionally exhausting, but the fact that we can do it, and it's never the same and there is so many variables, it's sort of like getting on a 12 hour roller coaster, high highs and low lows, it's super scary but super fun, and there is that feeling of having run a marathon by the end of it. Dunno if that's am explanation or not. As far as who I want to join us onstage? Springsteen in asbury park..

BOBBY: It is so hard to sustain mental and physical energy and focus during these extended performances, especially (for me, at least) the improvisatory, instant-composition mental demands, that by the end we’ve all experienced a wrenching form of altered consciousness. I wouldn’t believe a fucking thing anyone tells you after an Ocropolis performance! The lure is, in part at least, this altered consciousness and the intense musical revelations it has occasioned within us as individuals and as a collective entity. It’s indescribable, and has changed us radically and permanently as musicians and as thinkers. I don’t know if we’ll ever stop doing it, honestly – or some kind of performance experience that opens doors in similar ways.

SHAHIN: It's actually much worse than that.. When we perform the Ocropolis at the Asbury Park ATP, we will have performed a ten hour improv in the MIDDLE of a THREE DAY show in Secret Project Robot (upstairs from our Brooklyn Studio) in June, a 6 hour set for a Japan benefit in our studio in March, and recorded another 7 hours or so of improvising later that month.

For me the lure changes each time. The first time we did it we were very much prodded by The Flaming Lips to come up with an outlandish set idea for the ATP they were curating. It was Kid's initiative as I recall, a large-scale extension of a series of parties we were having inside our studio. If you have heard the phrase "it seemed like a good idea at the time" I can tell you what it means. Anyway, it was! Looking back, the first ten hour improv was the hardest, and it reallybroke our brains.. really, in a beautiful way I think.

It turns out that there's a place you sort of have to get to in order to make up music on the spot for ten hours, with a rotating cast of friends and people you admire, on zany gear you may or may not be able to monitor very well, in front of a paying festival audience, and to have a good time with your band doing it. Wherever that is, I wasn't all there when we started that first one, but I was when we finished and I'm not sure I know another way to get there. There's no coat-rack for hangups inside the Ocropolis, put it that way.

More recently I think we're all curious to see where this takes us musically, and that's why documenting the events is really important. I think we're all of the belief that these performances draw music out of us we would never make otherwise, and that's why it's important and kind of fascinating for us to record them.

JANE: I don’t remember committing to this.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Tell us about some of the people you have played with in the last two Ocropolis performances, who 'got it' the most, who pushed you into uncharted territory etc?

KID: Well. . .damn. . .each performer took us to new heights. . .I mean there are so many. The Boredoms, Hisham Bharoocha, Zach Hill, Deerhoof, Flaming Lips, Mike Watt, The Dead C, White Hills. . .all of those jams took us to different and interesting places. . .no one was the "best" - everyone brings their A game. . .

That said - the most damaged performance was Dead C. . .I think actually they might have broken Oneida. I say this in a good way - they might have shown us a new path in improvisation we're still mining. . .

BARRY: Dead C was insane, it was the most sea sick music of pushing and pulling in the most bizarre way, it really pushed us as a band and into uncomfortable territory kind of like a plane that's gone out of control. On the other end of that spectrum Mike Watt came up threw down his cane, picked up his bass and just kicked it. Good times.

BOBBY: I’ll answer this personally, not on behalf of others – playing with the Dead C guys at Minehead was powerful for me, because they enforced a personal vision on the performance that we wrestled with in various ways, and I had to strip away some vestigial notions that I had brought with me to the performance, or that had been built throughout the previous hours of playing and improvising. They were musically confrontational – not aggressive, not brutal, but they actively pushed against ideas of collaboration and cooperation, presenting a deliberate deconstruction of the group-improv process that was ultimately awesome and produced a more pointillistic kind of sound from the stage – scattered individual fragments of sound that clashed and scraped against each other, rather than combining into a coherent single entity of sound. Playing within that altered context was exhilarating and inspirational for me.

SHAHIN: I think the ones that agree to do it all get it, there's really nothing more you need to "get" once you've agreed to do it. I remember having an especially great time playing with folks from Boredoms, Home, Dead C, Deerhoof, Tall Firs, Black Dice, Christy & Emily. I'll add my bandmates in Knyfe Hyts but that goes without saying. For me Boredoms, Dead C and Deerhoof folks all kind of messed with my mind and I found myself doing really unnatural things with the group that sounded cool to me. It's always an honor and a thrill when curators like the Flaming Lips and Godspeed play with us. I remember being shocked, nearly to inaction, when Mike Watt took the stage at The Nightmare Before Christmas.

JANE: Yeah, we have had many great connections with performers during these improvs but the Dead C thing was a good big problem. That knocked some pretty stubborn gears loose. Also, the very first Ocropolis jam at the very first Ocropolis (ATP staged that is) was with Akron Family and that was such a fun and successful connection that I have to say that it set the tone for my ongoing relationship with this whole thing. That was WONDERFUL.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Predictable question time, but who living or dead would you love to see joining you on stage for an Ocropolis performance?

KID: Neil Michael Hagerty, Thurston Moore, Kate Bush, Jimi, Joni Mitchell. . .

BARRY: A few years back we played a festival in Sweden and this older guy was playing in a band that was he and another B3 player and as we watched Bobby and I realized we were watching Bo Hansson, and it was rad, I think he passed away a few years ago, but he's my fantasy jammer.

BOBBY: Living: Ralf, Florian, Moebius, Roedelius, all together w/the O. Dead: Jimi, no question.

JANE: Living: Neil Young, Yo La Tengo crew, Yoko Ono, Angus & Malcolm Young, Brother JT (reunion, brah!), Kelly Clarkson. Dead: Jimi, Roy Orbison, Bernie (from ‘Weekend at…’).

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CHRIS ROCKET: I hear both Ocropolis performances were recorded, will these ever see the light if day? I know a UK label that would love to put them out ha ha!!!

KID: Wading through the material will take a lot of time. . .so when the time is right we're going to do it properly - maybe we need some funding to do it. . .I'm not sure. We're all so busy - but yeah - those performances will be explored and released at some point! Yeah - perhaps that UK label will get a taste!

BARRY: Hopefully the Ocrops will see the light of day, but when you have 24 hours of music to go through, highlight and edit, and also want to be an active band and make new studio records, you have to pick and choose your battles. One of these days we will spend a few weekends going through it all and start to make the Ocropolis Into digestible listening adventures, when? Only time will tell.....

BOBBY: All recorded to multitrack, yep. They will see the light of day in some form, but we are being measured and thoughtful, waiting to see how this experience and project develops. If someone came along with a massive, thought-out proposal that combined vast ambition and a persuasive sense of mission, we’d listen very carefully to them.

JANE: If we ever stopping playing new Ocropolis shows then maybe we would have time to release the old ones. Not looking hopeful, brah.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Repetition is an integral part of your music, why?

KID: Hmmm - that question's a bit broad don't you think? But yeah - what we do is not complex. We're going for a mesmerizing kind of experience. We're also trying to break listeners' expectations. "Does this part go on too long? Well let's stretch it out another 5 minutes and see what happens."

I don't know - its what we're drawn to as composers and song writers. We want to lose ourselves in the music and to be able to find the nuances that emerge when you play a riff or pattern over and over. . .I mean Steve Reich and Phillip Glass are clearly antecedents to our music.

BARRY: I like doing things more than once.

BOBBY: We stole the idea from James Brown.

JANE: I like a groove.

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CHRIS ROCKET: What are you favourite pieces of repetitive music?

KID: Oh - yeah - well early Phillip Glass and early Steve Reich. . .La Monte Young's Dreamhouse installation. . .James Brown. . .Miles Davis' electric period. . .Can. . .Detroit Techno and Chicago House. . .stuff like that. . .

BARRY: Personally I have a deep fondness for John Carpenter sound tracks, as well as I play synths in the band in a repetitive nature, but the Escape From NY and The Fog soundtracks are definitely influential on me, as much as 13th floor elevators or and other kraut/psych. I also listen to decent amount of hip hop, anything Wu Tang related I still try and check out one way or another.

BOBBY: The complete discography of James Brown from 1967 – 1975.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Are there any tracks or albums that are a key influence on the band that would suprise readers of Optical Sound?

KID: Would Moondog surprise anyone? I doubt it. . .but Moondog II was played a lot back in the day. Credence? Oasis? The Carpenters? It's all music. . .at this point in the game nothing should surprise anyone - anyone can listen to any record that ever existed now. It's all in play.

BOBBY: I’m not sure what might come as a surprise – and of course, presenting that would be in a sense insulting to your readers (ie, “what do we think is rad that you fools haven’t considered…”). That said, I’ll at least acknowledge that I listen to WKTU more than you might imagine, and maybe that’s an influence on me?

JANE: Yeah, I’m with Bobby, I think that people do not realize just how much dance music we listen to. I mean TONS.

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CHRIS ROCKET: What was the original idea behind the Thank Your Parents Tryptitch, and now it is complete, has it turned out the way you wanted or expected?

KID: It has turned out perfectly - not as I expected but it never had any kinds of rules. . .I think it's perfect and heads ain't ready.

BARRY: As far as the thank your parents trilogy is concerned, it has changed alot since the dawn of the project. Initially it was going to be one album, but in the process it became difficult to make deadlines and we shelved alot of the tracks, and then as time passed, and we revisited them realizing how close we were to finishing alot of those tracks, plus we had a whole bunch of new tracks and that's when the scope of doing it as 3 albums kinda came to light. As far as the arc of the three albums, I could not be happier. I love all 3 of them.

BOBBY: The triptych construct is the idea of three layers, three modes of presentation, three interconnected and interdependent components of a whole. I tend to envision the triptych as inviting intensest scrutiny of its center panel, with supporting leaves/panels providing context, narrative direction, physical support and framing. By exploring the infinite sides of the O, “Thank Your Parents” is a recognition of cyclical, multifaceted reality as we experience it. And yeah, it’s awesome. I mean, it’s the only way I’ve actually, literally experienced death so far, and that turned out to be fascinating.

JANE: I just thought that we should acknowledge that we could not have scrapped out the early O without the support (indirect and direct) of some solid parents. Beyond that, what better way to thank a parent than to make music that they would not want to hear or show to their friends or colleagues.

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CHRIS ROCKET: The third chapter of the triptych Absolute II features no drums, which is a real departure from most Oneida records how did that come about, did Kid lose his sticks?

KID: Actually the minimal phase of the band was instigated by me - at least in my memory. Perhaps I got tired of my playing for a few months. It was just something I wanted us to explore in the studio. We recorded a bunch of pieces and then sat on them for a while. . .when we returned to them later they sounded exciting to us. There's also a People of the North record that has no drums. . .don't tell Jagjaguwar that though.

BARRY: kid did not loose his sticks but Bobby did hide his mallets.

BOBBY: Kid should probably answer this…but I’ll note that while all five members of Oneida play on this record, your expectations of what exactly is happening at any given moment might not match the factual history of the recording. It is an absolute collaboration

SHAHIN: I think it was a while into it before we realized that Kid doesn't play the drums on it. I think someone pointed out that Bobby doesn't appear to play any organ on it and Jane doesn't seem to play any guitar either. Anyway none of that was on an agenda. It's not totally uncommon for us to realize we have no memory or record of who did what on what recording, and much of the who did what on what instrument on Absolute II is a mystery to us. I mean sometimes we can't even tell who's doing what while we're doing it. We record and experiment in our studio year round, as often as we can. When it came time to take inventory and envision the concluding piece of Thank Your Parents, these recordings stood out thematically and musically and so we worked on them. We figured out much later that they were among the first Oneida recordings made after all the Rated O recordings, and that's fitting and believable to me.

The recordings on Absolute II to me are remarkable for their patience, discipline, acceptance and stillness-- I'm proud of them as a mark of the depths of mutual faith and understanding the five of us have been able to achieve in this context. In some ways it's the recording in which I'm most proud to have been involved.

JANE: We were kind of organically heading this way as an extension of our improvs. Additionally, we had been working on some documentary soundtrack work (e.g. End of Time used on Rated O) that was very minimal and ambient (which I got into the electric piano stuff I contribute to some of Absolute II). Kid wanted to push the minimal thing further and that was an easy sell. Like the whole Thank Your Parents project, we just kind of collaboratively and organically got there.

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CHRIS ROCKET: To me the tracks on Absolute II sound like incidental music for some amazing psyched out movie, have you ever been approached to soundtrack a film before?

KID: We have done a couple soundtracks - you can hear unreleased Oneida music on the films Speedo by Jesse Moss and Up on the Roof by Sonny Arenson. The music is pretty cool. . .here's an Oneida track you probably don't know about (my drumming is a little sloppy though): http://www.creativearson.com/upontheroof/oneida-history.mp3

I'm not sure what's going to happen with this film - if a DVD will be produced or not - but it's a great film about the gentrification of Williamsburgh, Brooklyn.

BARRY: We did a documentary about pigeons and a doc about demolition derbys.

BOBBY: Yes, a few times, always documentaries. Some have worked out, some haven’t. Still waiting for “Holy Mountain II”.

JANE: I have also been trying to get someone to use this kind of O material in some of the San Fran scene surf movies. No luck yet but from my perspective, such a clear fit.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Are there any films from time you would of loved to of been offered to soundtrack?

KID: Top Gun and Point Break would have been fun.

BARRY: Absolute II is lines up perfectly with the hangover II, just don't tell the rest of the band.

BOBBY: Escape from Alcatraz – except the soundtrack for that is so amazing, it’s kind of unfair to imagine a world without it. So maybe some old Roman epic Cecil B DeMille thing, or a Busby Berkely film – it might be a profound experience to write for Esther Williams!

SHAHIN: We've all been involved in composing music for picture, as a band and as individuals. Weirdly, I have a lot of experience doing this for TV advertising, and that experience has taught me that a mutually fulfilling scoring experience is as much about working with a director--and/or whoever else is calling shots on the overall creative team--as it is working with a film. If you don't share a creative vision or some common way of talking about and relating to music, the scoring work and the results can be frustrating.

I would work with any director who was able to accept that they're probably not going to get what they think they're going to get from the O (I mean, who does?), and be psyched about it.

JANE: Old school horror movies. Anything related to Werner Herzog. Westerns and, as I mentioned earlier, surfing movies. Would also love to do music for a Jim Jarmusch movie.

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CHRIS ROCKET: Whenever the 'O' come over to the uk you always ask the 'O', Rocket’s johnny O that is, to bathe you in his lightshow, and i do remember the amazing visuals he put together for you on your last UK tour when Teeth Of The Sea supported, why are visuals so important for you, is it the 'dead head' in you demanding the psychedelic lights?

KID: Johnny O is a lighting genius - so of course we want him involved when we come to the UK. He's a master. Thanks for the reminder - I'll make sure to contact him about August!

We've always tried to incorporate additional installation elements to our performances - mainly with Mighty Robot Visuals but also with the Rickety Visuals in Pittsburgh. . .we've also worked with the famous Joshua Light Show on a couple of projects. Analogue visuals are a dying art form - you can't get these effects through digital media yet. . .that doesn't explain why we incorporate visuals. . .but I think it livens up our otherwise pretty static and uninteresting stage presence.

We're also not an incredibly attractive bunch of guys. . .so we need the darkness.

BARRY: Back home our friends from the mighty robot a/v squad do lights for us. With us coming over and having Johnny O do lights for us, to me anyway, it's like an extension of family. I love the idea that we have built an international community of folks who like to do cool shit together. That we can expand the process of a band playing into being something a little bit more. Growing up and going to punk and hardcore shows, and then going to indie rock shows there was very little creative lighting going on, and for the few bands that I did see who did something crazy with the lighting, to me really stood out. Mbv and Neurosis, that stuff was next level to me with crazy projections, and we are seriously blessed to have made friends and co conspirators to deal with your eyes while we deal with your ears.

BOBBY: I don’t think it’s the dead head in me…in fact, I’m 100% sure it isn’t. We value the transportative experience immensely, and adding a visual component to our show adds to that potential. We’re judicious about our collaborators, of course – we love what Johnny O does, so we ask for his input each time we’re around. When we’re on our home turf, or when we’re mounting a full-scale Ocropolis performance, we work with the Secret Project Robot visual crew, who are based in the Monster Island collective with us in Brooklyn. They’ve provided lights, projections, and installations for all of our Ocropolis performances (and will do so again this June in Brooklyn, and October at ATP’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” event in New Jersey).

SHAHIN: Johnny O is a seriously talented head and his visuals make our show a better experience for us and for the audience. Am I right?! So long as he's moved to do it we'd be crazy not to have him. Jane and I probably spend half the show staring at the visuals and chatting amongst ourselves "dude are you seeing this? let's do long tones on three...".

I mean what really in the moment visuals add is kind of a deep thing. I've never considered music to be an exclusively auditory thing, I mean I'm definitely interested in what it sounds like but that's only one part of the art, one way it effects you, and often for me that's the most boring and least moving part. More than a recording entity, Oneida is a relationship between very different people who find a mutual way of seeing, and being okay in, the world. Oneida is a band, and like any relationship it can be something or it can be nothing. You can't spell okay--and you can't spell Johnny--without the O. In summary, we dig visuals.

JANE: Visuals are just a natural extension of our performance and also give us a chance for yet another layer of collaboration. Johnny O is part of a visuals community near and dear to Oneida. We have the Might Robot AV Squad (based out of Brooklyn, in our studio building), The Rickety Visuals crew based in Pittsburgh, PA and, of course Johnny O, our UK brah. They all have their own style and all lay heavy jams with the lights. It just makes the whole experience better, more complete, more realized.

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CHRIS ROCKET: What was the best experience of a psych lightshow you have ever witnessed?

KID: Hmm - definitely three things - Mighty Robot Visuals' work at The Kitchen when Oneida performed The Wedding, Joshua Light Show's Fulldome performance at the Hayden Planetarium and Rickety Visuals put together for Oneida's performance at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

BARRY: Personally it was a show we played in NY with silver apples and the Joshua light show had done lights for us in an old theater in NY. What blew me away was how huge there light crew was and all of these old school techniques that they had used and watching them work their magic was brilliant. Also there was this time in high school that I took acid and went to see David Bowie at the meadow lands for the sound and vision tour and there were these giant Bowie's that freaked me out.

SHAHIN: There was a moment when I sort of woke up on stage at Abrons Art Center on the Lower East Side. We were on stage playing

"Oscillations" with Simeon from Silver Apples over to my left, and the Joshua Light Show--the crew who did the insane psychedelic liquid light shows at the Fillmore East in the 60s-- was doing remarkably mind-bending real time visuals on a giant screen directly behind us, just an enormous crew using technology old and new. I kind of looked around and was like "what decade is it?" and touched the torch.

JANE: For Oneida experiences I’d have to say the heaviest lightshow performances that I can recall were the Might Robot AV visuals during our performance of The Wedding at the Kitchen in NYC, Johnny O’s visuals in that square box place (Kube Cinema?) in Bristol a few years ago,… actually no, Johnny flipped my lid when we played with The Heads in London many years ago. I cannot remember the venue but the visuals were so nuts that I just got totally lost in them. Yeah that’s one of the most truly psych, overwhelming, lost in space moments I have had with visuals while we were on stage. The Rickety Visuals at the Warhol Museum show in Pittsburgh were nuts, they do great analog film loop stuff. Each of those crews has such a distinctive style, each creeping into my brain through a different relay, each inspiring a particular set of immediate emotions for me – Robot’s initially alienate me in a cool Phillip K. Dick way, Rickety’s visuals feel nurturing and warm and Johnny’s cloud me up in these waves of gauze – but they all share these moments of transcendent beauty that just truly fill me with joy. Crap, there’s some hippy for you.

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CHRIS ROCKET: The Oneida line up has shrunk and grown several times, do you think these changes have helped your creativity, and if so in what way?

KID: I think yes they have - always. When Crazee quit the band in 2002 we had to re-imagine our sound and make sense of the space we started hearing in our music. That gave birth to the songs on Secret Wars. . .and moved us into the territory of The Wedding and Happy New Year. . .

Then we added some people to flesh out some of the new ideas we were tackling with Preteen Weaponry and Rated O. . .the new guys are taking the music in new directions. So yeah - new people equal new ideas.

BARRY: I've been involved with the o since secret wars, as an engineer and in playing on the records. Each member of the O past and present bring their own magic and what's really nice is that no one really leaves the O. We've had to do a few shows over the last year or two that Bobby wasn't able to do so we call Crazee and see if he wants to and boom, now it's Crazee in the mix. I think that when we do the Ocrops it's sort of an extension of that mentality of "now you are in the O". Everyone plays music differently, hears things differently, reacts to things differently, and it's the dynamics of those musical reactions that make playing with different people so rewarding.

BOBBY: Absolutely – being put in unanticipated positions, working in different situations, listening to different people – all of these are ways to keep us pushing into new perspectives. Right now, the five-piece lineup is exploring a new set of limits and possibilities occasioned by who we’ve been in the last three or four years. Our first lineup change, when PCRZ left in 2001 and we moved from a four- to a three-piece, was a hugely educational experience for us. We learned the value of adaptive evolution, and we learned how to be patient with ourselves creatively. This probably would have been a less productive experience if we hadn’t had a patient, supportive label who was committed to allowing us the space and opportunity to explore and evolve. Thanks, Universal Music Group! Oh shit, sorry, I mean Jagjaguwar.

JANE: This shifts have all helped us to grow creatively but they also clearly reflect or natural organic creative style. It is pretty thrilling to play with such an adaptable, ever-mutating organism. Also, the GuitArmy (Jane and Showtime/Shahin) is an unstoppable Tower of Power and that would not have come to be if the O did not gr-O-w.

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CHRIS ROCKET: You all play or have played in many bands, to help the readers out there complete their Oneida family tree can you tell us about all the bands you have played with?

KID: White Hills, Jah Division, Soldiers of Fortune, Man Forever, Midnight O'Connor, Christy and Emily, Super Hussy, Mishagas, People of the North. . .probably some others. . .

BARRY: I played in college in a band called The Vanpelt, I played in a band of the post JSBX world called The Knoxville Girls, I played in a band called Dan Melchior's Broke Revue, I played on and off for a few years with Samara Lubelski and Kid and I play in a band with Crazee called Soldiers of Fortune.

SHAHIN: I used to have a band called Ex Models and that's how I met Oneida; Kid played drums on the last album we did before we went on hiatus. The dudes from Ex Models and I have a stoned alter-ego called Knyfe Hyts that puts out all kinds of stoned brilliant genius. I also play with Kid and Bobby in People of the North a bunch, solo as Inferior Amps, in duo with Noveller's Sarah Lipstate, with Kid in his solo thing Man Forever, all kinds of temporary posts with Awesome Color, Jah Division, as a duo with Noveller's Sarah Lipstate.. there's other comedy that I'm forgetting.

JANE: Sheik Zander (okay that was a highschool band), Super Hussy (w/Kid), Miagi, Karaoke Hustler (w/Bobby), Oneida, The Bible (with Kid and sometimes Barry), On Golden Bong, Jah Division (Kid, Barry, etc.), Tiny Boy (Jane and Barry duo)

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CHRIS ROCKET: You have been responsible for some great remixes, especially the ones for your own Caesars Column 12" have you been approached by many bands or artists to remix them, if so how did they come out?

KID: Yes we've been approached by many bands and delivered remixes that have usually been rejected. Head's ain't ready for the O - they never have and they never will. At some point we should release an album of rejected remixes. . .I think it would be instructive because some of the remixes we've done are fucking awesome and it will show up the bands that rejected them.

We tell people that we expect to be paid no matter whether they use the remix or not. But they still don't pay us.

Next time I will demand payment upfront.

BARRY: Well I did a remix on the Ceasars 12" and Oneida seemed to like it just fine!

SHAHIN: Kid and I have done a handful of remixes as "Better Brothers", and we enjoy working on them, we always have a blast investigating other people's recordings and finding things we respond to. I really like them. Whether or not anyone else enjoys them is another matter, ha ha. Nobody ever gets what they think they're going to get from the O, even when we warn them that's probably going to be the case! We also do house painting.

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CHRIS ROCKET: So what is next for Oneida, how do you follow a tryptich?

KID: There are some really ambitious plans we have in store - I think it's too early to reveal them though. . .maybe off the record!

BARRY: A record that plays a week.

JANE: We will probably keep jamming and that will probably lead to some accidental songwriting and we will probably record all of it and release all of it. Oh, and we are moving our studio again, so more moving and building and some, hopefully cool, new sounds.

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CHRIS ROCKET: And finally, I have never asked you this, but what is the fascination with cutlery?

KID: I think this might be a joke that I don't understand. . .

BARRY: This reminds me of when I asked Fuck Buttons why they hate buttons so much....

***END OF TRANSMISSION***

Thanks to Dave C from Optical Sounds.

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Oneida-Mugstar-Collisions-02 is available now on Rocket Recordings & in all good record shops.

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Black Mass Rising trailer

2011-12-01T13:26:00.003Z

Here is a nice trailer for the forthcoming film Black Mass Rising which has been created by Shazzula from Aqua Nebula Oscillator (and sometimes White Hills Collaborator)

The film features music from the likes of Master Musicians of Bukkake, Entrance band, AMT and others.

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Teeth of the Sea - 'Black Impulse' Mix

2011-12-01T09:17:00.006Z

Teeth of the Sea's guitarist Jimmy Martin has complied his own 'Black Impulse' mix, check it out:

black-impulse-mix-tape-21

Tracklist:

1. Alan Moore and Tim Perkins -Terrae – A Skeleton Horse
2. Pain Teens – Voluptus
3. Tweet feat. Fabolous & Missy Elliot – Oops (Oh My)
4. Heldon – Perspective III (Baader Meinhof Blues)
5. Linda Perhacs – Parallelograms
6. Delia Derbyshire – Blue Veils and Golden Sands (Inferno)
7. Voivod – Tribal Convictions
8. Zolar X – Message Transmitting
9. Killdozer – The Pig Was Cool

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Rocket Probes November 2011 Playlist

2011-11-30T13:20:00.006Z

Sync (by Max Hattler) from Max Hattler on Vimeo.

The Heads - Vertigo Swill

(What electricity was discovered for)

Robedour - Too Down To Die

(Psyched out jams of electronics, guitars and primitive rhythms...has a real 'stoned out' Gnod style which is a good thing in our books)

Picchio Dal Pozzo - Seppia
(Awesome heavy italian prog, like Klaus Shulze meets Soft Machine meets Crimson, taken from their self titled album, thanks to Cherrystones for turning us onto this great track)

Dead Moon - Unknown Passage
(Great album that features the amazing 'AC/DC gone motorik' track Dead Moon Night...also, check out the documentary of the same name, a great watch)

Kandodo - Kandodo
(Good album of psyched out, fuzz drones by Simon Price of The Heads)

Horrors - Skying
(What can we say...we like our pop music with soaring shoegazey guitars and swirling keyboards)

Dashiell Hedayat - Obsolete
(More great Canterbery sounding prog, this time from France and features Daevid Allen)

Cliff Martinez - Drive (OST)
(Great film and a great incidental soundtrack of dark, moody, droney and repetitive electronic soundscapes)

Faust - 71 Minutes
(Hypnotic Kraut masterwerk, Rocket are currently having a Faust revival)

Creation Rebel - Starship Africa

(Kraut Space Dub)

Bevis Frond - Bevis Through The Looking Glass

(With a title like '1970's Home Improvements' on the album, what would you expect)

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Cherrystones 'drops' Goatman

2011-11-25T15:08:00.007Z

Fellow 'Nothing is...' DJ and friend of Rocket, Mr Cherrystones has included the up-and-coming Rocket release 'Goatman' by Goat on this podcast on NTS.

You can check it out here

(Track plays at 1hr 15mins into the mix)

Keep your eyes peeled for more info on this amazing new release over the next week or so.

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"Say what you sea"

2011-11-25T13:23:00.001Z

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Serpentina Satelite - Nothing to Say - 1st look

2011-11-24T14:29:00.004Z

Dave from opticalsounds has received the 1st copy we've seen of Serpentina Satelite - Nothing to Say, artwork by our very own Johnnyo & we think the result are very impressive.

For further details:

serpentina-satelite-nothing-to-say

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Calling all musicnauts – We need your votes!!!

2011-11-24T13:29:00.004Z

As previously posted, 'Gnod Dropout with White Hills' LP on Rocket has been nominated for a best sleeve award so we need your votes.

So, please cast your votes here

And don't forget that limited edition 'glow in the dark' screenprinted posters of the sleeve will be available very shortly!!!

Thanks

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GNOD play 'Behind Wall of Sleep' Xmas party

2011-11-24T13:04:00.003Z

For those of you who live in Liverpool, you have a treat in store for you.

Our very own Gnod are playing the Beyond the Wall of Sleep Xmas party at Mello Mello on 21st December.

---

Teeth of the Sea play 'God don't like it' mini festival

2011-11-24T12:55:00.004Z

Promoters 'God don't like it' are calling it a day and are putting on four nights at the Lexington in London as a farewell.

Rocket's very own Teeth of the Sea are playing one of these nights on December 28th

You can buy tickets here

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The Heads - 'Vertigo Swill' repress

2011-11-23T13:50:00.004Z

The Heads ‘Vertigo Swill’ reversed edition will shortly be available in another limited edition again via The Heads own label Rooster on CD - see the guestbook on their website for details.

---

GNOD Dropout with White Hills - Nominated for 'Best Art Vinyl 2011'

2011-11-08T17:29:00.008Z

Once again Art Vinyl, have put together the 50 nominations for Best Art Vinyl 2011, a poll of the best vinyl record cover art of the year.

Rocket's very own 'Gnod Dropout with White Hills' has been selected as one of the fifty nominations.

From November 9^th, you can also vote online at: artvinyl.com/en/nominate/nominations

So get voting!!!

Thanks

---

Supersonic Festival 2011 in 120 Seconds (Soundtracked by Teeth of the Sea)

2011-11-07T20:41:00.001Z

Check out this video from Supersonic Festival 2011, filmed & edited by HTF Media, sound track by Teeth Of The Sea

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GNOD Release Ltd Cassette on Colour Ride Tape Label

2011-11-02T09:24:00.011Z

Cassette label 'Colour Ride' release Gnod - The Long And Short Of It, pure noise rock on side A; skyward-looking psych drone on the flip. Essential. 50 copies.

colourride

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't forget

'Tamed Records'

GNOD - Chaudelande Volume 1 is also out now:

Mancunians GNOD started their last european tour to date by spending a couple of days in the Studio Chaudelande, a small house made of bricks and passion, somewhere in the Normandy countryside (France). They recorded new songs that are now released as a two volumes LP series on Tamed Records. "Chaudelande Volume I" contains three songs which demonstrated the multi-faceted universe of GNOD. From the heaviest spacerock parts they ever recorded to meditative neo-folk influenced moments of calmness and introspection, this new recording marks a new step in GNOD cosmic procession. "Chaudelande Volume I" is the first release on Tamed Records scheduled for october the 20th and we're happy to start the adventure with such a great record!

tamedrecords.com

---

Rocket Probes October 2011 Playlist

2011-10-31T09:56:00.010Z

Lumerians - Transmalinnia

(Spacemen 3 with hand percussion, fuzzed out organ space disco)

Great Society Mind Destroyers - Spirit Smoke

(Mind-effected fuzz wah from Chicago)

Plastic People of the Universe - Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned
(Czech freaks in a Mothers of Invention, Velvet Underground vein)

Hawkwind - Various

(Tracks from 'Choose Your Masques' (Void City) & 'Church of Hawkwind' - post Calvert, heavy on the keyboards & samples)

Sunroof - Cloudz

(Skullflower's alter Krautrock worship)

Celtic Frost - Into the Mega Therion

(Great album that still hasn't lost its fuzz thrash power)

AKA - Hard Beat
(Grooved out 70's rock from Indonesia on lovely double vinyl)

Velvet Underground - Norman Dolph acetate
(Good to finally hear this long lost version of their great first lp...contains some completely different versions, though a bit crackly its a must listen.)

The Fall - 50 Year Old Man
(12mins of repetitive fuzz confrontation)

Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier / '79-'80 B sides and demos
(If you can forgive the cheese you are rewarded with some great feedback drenched fuzz and repetitive tribal drums that wouldn’t sound too out of place on Not Not Fun, or on a Teeth of the Sea record)

---

Supersonic Festival 2011 - Teeth of the Sea - Reviewed

2011-10-28T20:05:00.008+01:00

Read The Quietus review of this years 2011 Supersonic Festival featuring our very own Teeth of the Sea:

thequietus.com/supersonic-festival-2011

---

The Heads - 'Vertigo Swill' Artwork

2011-10-25T14:05:00.008+01:00

For all those paying attention last week we posted that The Heads Rock Prof is currently complying a double 1994-2002 retrospective called ‘Vertigo Swill’ it will be limited to 88 copies on this run (numbered to 88 as there were 88 UK Vertigo 'Swirlies' released) and is out in November via The Heads own label Rooster on CD - see the guestbook on their website for confirmation of availability details.

Artwork has reached us & again its another Sam Giles retro classic.

---

Teeth of the Sea - Supersonic 2011

2011-10-25T09:35:00.005+01:00

After witnessing Teeth of the Sea play a storming set in front of a packed audience in the festival's 'Boxed' venue, here is a little reminder of this years supersonic'd attack in its full visual bathed glory.

---

White Hills - Heads on Fire - Ltd Repress!

2011-10-25T08:58:00.009+01:00

Rocket have repressed the long out of print White Hills CD 'Heads on Fire' and it is in the shops as of yesterday. This is the press release:

WHITE HILLS - HEADS ON FIRE

LAUNCH029 (Re-issue)

RELEASE DATE
24th OCTOBER 2011

TRACKLIST
-----------------------------------

01 RADIATE
02 OCEANS OF SOUND
03 RETURN OF SPEED TOILET
04 VISIONS OF THE PAST,
PRESENT AND FUTURE
05 DON'T BE AFRAID
06 ETERNITY

Due to the demands we have been getting from their fans, we are pleased to announce this overdue reissue of Heads on Fire, the out of print second album by New Yorks White Hills. Since this release their first for Rocket the band have gone to release several very highly regarded albums for Thrill Jockey.

Ever changing and always striving to push the envelope, White Hills album Heads on Fire finds the band playing a heavier style of spacerock.

Relentless and punishing, the album kicks off with the spacey swirl of the song ‘Radiate’ and ends with the speedladen blast of the track ‘Eternity’. Along the way, a mesmerising blend of growlling fuzz / wah guitar, pounding bass, sprawling synth, and chaotic drumming doses one’s head three sheets to the wind. Whether it be the mere one minute track ‘Return of Speed Toilet’ or the 26 plus minute ‘Don’t Be Afraid’, the listener will be taken on ride through a world that is all encompassing from beginning to end.

The band started in New York as a solo project by Dave W. Since then it has turned into a trio, with Ego Sensation (bass) plus various drummers which has included Kid Millions of Oneida fame. Like Oneida, White Hills also share a love for a hard rock stripped of its bombast, their heavier, dirtier, earthier influences contend with airier atmospheres while combining steadiness with spacious soaring guitars, these heads are always on fire!

For more information e-mail:

rocketrecordings@yahoo.co.uk

whitehillsmusic.tumblr.com
thrilljockey.com
myspace.com/whitehills
soundcloud.com/white-hills

---

The Heads gear up for another archive CD

2011-10-21T17:40:00.005+01:00

The Heads Rock Prof is currently complying a 1994-2002 retrospective called ‘vertigoswill’ (please note no artwork was available when we posted).

It contains some Coogan's mixes, with guitars set to stun in true Heads style, jams with plenty of wah soloing and Prof even doing an over the top bass solo. The CD also features a 'Can' type trip and very keyboard heavy version of KRT.

Having previously heard some of the music, the Coogan's mixes are worth the money alone.

Here is a tracklist.

1. PEDESTRIAN CROSSING
2. TRUCKERS CODE
3. LOOK LIKE ELVIS
4. HOT CATS ZAPPALIN
5. THREE STICKS SMALL STONE
6. FUCKED UP IN HOTELS
7. VERTIGOSWILL
8. ONE TRACK ROCK PT 2
9. SAVING IT ALL UP FOR YOU SUNSHINE
10. ONE TRACK ROCK PT 3
11. KH-KRT (LIVE AT THE THEKLA 00?)

1. GRAND FINALE 94
2. NEVER HAD IT BETTER (INSTRUMENTAL)
3. ONE TRACK ROCK PT 1
4. BRING ME TEA
5. CARLISLE BUZZ
6. WAH BASS EXTRACT
7. SALISBURY 1994/CIRCULAR
8. WAHWAHWAHWAH
9. COOGANS END ( RELAXING WITH PROF MIX 95)
10. LAKE OF GREEN

Keep your eye out on The Heads website forum for news of it's release.

---

Pupilar Remix of GNOD's Vatican

2011-10-21T17:29:00.004+01:00

Kev Pupilar has done a fantastic remix of GNOD'S Vatican, check out the soundcloud mix:

Vatican [Pupilar Dub] by GNOD

---

Aquarius Records review Collisions 02

2011-10-21T17:18:00.007+01:00

MUGSTAR / ONEIDA - Collisions 02

The return of aQ beloved UK space rockers Mugstar, who have teamed up with another fave of ours, East Coast noise rockers Oneida, and neither side disappoints. Mugstar offer up another killer chunk of spaced out psychedelia that would have been right at home on Lime or Sun Broken, opening up with a fuzzy organ drone, which quickly gives way to a badass Hawkwindy groove, all motorik mesmer and fuzzed out space rock pound. The organ giving the proceedings a serious prog vibe, the track chugs away until about halfway through when it collapse into a super rad mathy tangle of drum / guitar freakout, all repetitive and almost looped sounding, with FX swirling all over the place, before finally resolving in a blissed out stretch of murky psychedelic shimmer, only to eventually emerge as a stripped down, more krautrocky groove, with soaring dramatic vocals way down in the mix, pounding away all druggy and dreamy and laid back.

Oneida counter with what could be their coolest / weirdest jam yet, what appears to be their twisted take on space rock, exploding immediately into a wildly chaotic freakout guitar/drum squall, the band taking their sweet time to lock into a proper groove, and in fact, they almost manage not to at all, super loose and free, the drums intricate and mathy and almost the star of the show, pounding away beneath some freaked out guitar skree, until about halfway in, when in swoops some chiming guitar, draped over thick bass buzz, even more progged out and wildly trippy, until finally, they reel it all in, and finish off with a very Wooden Shjips sounding outro, but even then, way more tripped out and space-y. Killer stuff from both bands, and some of THEE coolest packaging we've seen, eye popping pink sleeve, with lots of white and brown 'o's and 'm's

Aquarius Records
Aquarius-records

More info:
Oneida-Mugstar-Collisions-02

---

Annapurna Illusion - Roadburn album of the day!

2011-10-21T16:50:00.011+01:00

Roadburn website has posted the Annapurna Illusion as their album of the day, the article is taken off another great Aquarius Records review, read it here:

Roadburn

More info: Annapurna-Illusion-Life-is-Illusion

Don't forget to catch GNOD playing at the 2012 Roadburn festival aswell.

----

Teeth of the Sea support Circle

2011-10-14T11:40:00.010+01:00

Corsia Studios presents
Mon 17th October

CIRCLE
+
TEETH OF THE SEA
+

BAD GUYS

CHERRYSTONES

Corsia Studios

4/5 Elephant Road
London
SE17 1LB

020 7703 4760

corsicastudios.com/circle

Facebook event:

facebook.com/event

In association with Birmingham's Supersonic Festival, Corsica Studios are proud to present CIRCLE. Formed in 1991, Circle is the most visible and prolific name in the Finnish avant-rock underground. Having survived innumerable lineup changes, the band and its founder, bassist/vocalist/guitarist Jussi Lehtisalo, have constantly reinvented themselves, weaving hypnotic mantras out of exacting Krautrock beats, heavy riffs, arty noise, dark psychedelia, and soundtrack-like beauty. Hard, chilly repetition has served as the lone unifying theme throughout 15 years of experiments.

---

Introducing - THE WATCHER

2011-10-13T11:47:00.015+01:00

Rocket are pleased to introduce fellow brainstormer, Optical Sounds' Dave C's new

regular guest feature 'THE WATCHER'.

THE WATCHER will be Dave C's take on the sounds of his forever swirling psychotomimetic optical world.

The first mission to be fired into orbit is an article about the Leeds band 'Hookworms'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE WATCHER

Photo credit Bart Pettman

HOOKWORMS

Who are Hookworms? A relatively new five piece psychedelic rock group based in Leeds or more specifically the scene that collects around the fantastic Brudenell Social Club.

What they sound like? Think Spacemen 3 / Wooden Shjips / Magic Lantern in a psyched up spew but that's probably just me and hopefully ive got yer attention.

After supporting Sun Araw at the Brudenell at the back end of last year Cameron Stallones expressed his admiration for the band and how they made him wish he still played with Magic Lantern. He asked them if / when they had laid down some tracks would Hookworms be able to send them over for his listening pleasure. Well when Cameron heard the tracks Hookworms sent over they fried his mind so much he emailed the guys backs immediately and told them - " I gotta put this out on my new tape label." Well said tape came out and sold out within a couple of days on Sun Ark.

But lucky for us Faux Disc and Gringo Records have teamed up to release said tape on Heavyweight vinyl (500). What you get is 4 tracks and 27 minutes of white noise maelstroms , riffs to infinity and astral synth whirr all swathed in a heavy psychedelic drone as tracks build to a glorious whiteout. All 4 songs are full of hooks, melodies and fabulous waves of acid drenched guitars. But live Hookworms are able to take this brew and blow your head off in an all out Sonic Attack. Totally essential.

To Pre-Order

bandcamp.com/hookworms

Facebook
facebook.com/Hookworms

Dave C.

---

Oneida - 7 hour Ocropolis set (in 3 parts)

2011-10-13T11:39:00.007+01:00

No other event over the festival weekend embodied the spirit of All Tomorrow's Parties more than Oneida's seven-hour improvisation, titled The Ocropolis III. Featuring guest musicians from Portishead, Boredoms, Yo La Tengo, Chavez, Tall Firs, Ceramic Dog, Invisible Circle and Guardian Alien, The Ocropolis III not only pulled in the ATP community, but also found the loose connections between these outer-sound musicians in the name of exploration and some kind of madness.

Read more & listen to the 7 hour set (in 3 parts) here:

the-ocropolis-iii-oneidas

---

MUGSTAR interview on Italian Radio

2011-10-13T11:25:00.004+01:00

Check this Italian radio station 'Adictos Ruido' interview with Mugstar featuring their new Rocket track 'European Nihilism'

Playlist:

EUROPEAN NIHILISM

SUNBURNT IMPEDANCE MACHINE

SERRA

RADAR KING

BEYOND THE SUN

mugstar-interview-intergalactic-journey

---

Coming Soon - Limited Edition 'Johnny O' - Rocket Posters

2011-10-11T14:56:00.015+01:00

Rocket are proud to announce that 2 limited edition posters 'In Search of Hawkwind' & 'Gnod Droput with White Hills' have gone for screen printing.

The artwork was created by Rocket's very own 'Johnny O' and will be available in two very limited numbered editions.

-----------------------------------------------------

In Search of Hawkwind - silver on black

Size: (420 x 520 mm)

'In Search of Hawkwind' artwork was originally created for a series of now highly sort after 7"s for the Trensmat record label who released 3 limited records of classic period Hawkwind cover versions reasons-to-be-cheerful. The 7" sleeves had re-imagined artwork by Johnny O further-reasons-to-be-cheerful in tribute to the late great Barney Bubbles from the same classic Hawkwind LP's as the tracks and came in 3 different full colour themes . Eventually members of Mugstar picked up the baton and released a CD on Critical Mass Recordings with expanded tracks, read here.

-----------------------------------------------------

Gnod Dropout with White Hills - black & glow in the dark yellow on white

Size: (420 x 520 mm)

'Gnod Droput with White Hills' artwork was created for the Rocket release Launch037 & was a part collaboration with Chris Haslam from Gnod, read here / and here.

-----------------------------------------------------

So watch this space for further details, we will post all relevant costs and delivery information in the up and coming weeks. When these sell out we will be doing some lovely full colour 'Heads - Everyones Knows' versions so get buying!

Thanks goes to Chaos v Cosmos for printing, check their stuff:

chaosvscosmos.blogspot.com

twitter.com/chaosvscosmos
flickr.com/photos/chaosvscosmos
gigposters.com/Chaos_Vs_Cosmos

---

Current Missions - Launched & On the Pad

2011-10-11T13:34:00.000+01:00

---

The amazing issue 3 of OPTICAL SOUND out now!!!

2011-10-10T09:58:00.007+01:00

Yes, our favourite Psyche / Garage / Kraut DIY magazine has its 3rd issue out now.

Featuring a mega interview with Oneida

(interview - courtesy of Rocket Recordings Chris Reeder)

Interviews with The Black Angels, Cosmic Dead, Will Carruthers, Eternal Tapestry, The Great Society Mind Destroyers, The Higher State, Hills, Hookworms, Paul Messis, Mmoss, Moon Duo, The Night Beats and White Hills.

Articles on The Cult Of Dom Keller in Austin, Thee Gnostics, Paul Allen and Simon Price of The Heads, Rocket Recordings, Matthew Smith of Outrageous Cherry on 'Out There In The Dark' and Talk Talk.

56 pages of psychedelia!!

Buy yourself one of these essential reads here

---

Teeth of the Sea - SUPERSONIC 2011

2011-10-05T10:37:00.006+01:00

We are really pleased to announce that Teeth of the Sea have been invited to play this years Supersonic festival (21-23 October), they will joining other Rocket faves White Hills, Eternal Tapestry, Alex Tucker, Circle, Tony Conrad and many more.

From A to Zine, The Skull Defekts, Dirty Electronics: Mute Synth, Monarch, In conversation with Tony Conrad, Eternal Tapestry, Circle, DJ Scotch Egg, Astro, Antilles, ENVY, GET A GRIP Screenprinting, Kill All Redneck Pricks: A Documentary Film about a Band Called KARP, Slabdragger, Kogumaza, Scorn, Teeth of the Sea, Conny Prantera, STILL BEFORE, Pekko Kappi, DrumCunt, Barn Owl, Byetone, Silver Apples, Alva Noto, Klaus Kinski, SOUNDkitchen, Samekhmem, Flesh for Frankenstein, Herman Inclusus, Birmingham Zine Festival exhibition, Wolves in the Throne Room, Bardo Pond, Tony Conrad, Cloaks, Imperfect Cinema, Zombi, a.P.A.t.T., Alexander Tucker presents DORWYTCH CYCLE, Backwards, Jefre Cantu – Ledesma, iconAclass, The Event, The Berg Sans Nipple, Nathan Bell, Drunk in Hell, Turbonegro, In Conversation with William Bennett + Vice Guide to Liberia, Supersonic Kids Gigs, Lucky Dragons, Suspiria, Part Chimp, Ore, Mike Watt + The Missingmen, Fire! with special guest Oren Ambarchi, Modulate, Secret Chiefs 3, Blood, Sweat + Vinyl : DIY in the 21st Century, Velzuvial – 24 hour music performance, White Hills, Electric Wizard, Sonic Graffiti, Man with a Video Camera, Orthodox, Selfless, $100 and a T-shirt- a film about zines, Drum Eyes, Fonal Records shorts, Pharaoh Overlord, Cut Hands, Agathe Max.

Tickets for the festival are only £75 for three days of music, film, art and cake.

Follow all developments via:

capsule

supersonicfestival

---

Teeth of the Sea support True Widow

2011-10-05T10:25:00.004+01:00

NEW HEAVY SOUNDS presents
Wed 12th October

TRUE WIDOW (Dallas, Texas)
+
TEETH OF THE SEA
+
LASERS FROM ATLANTIS

The Macbeth
70 Hoxton Street,

London

N1 6LP
0207 749 0508 / 0600

£8 / £7 advance
8pm - 12 midnight
DJs Stu Plimsoles + Igor Volk

Tickets -
wegottickets

TRUE WIDOW

A completely new type of 'Heavy' laid down by this Texas trio. Take your favourite My Bloody Valentine, your Sonic Youth, Crazy Horse, Stooges and then slow them down until you can hear picks hit strings, speakers flap under the strain, and fuzz like it will never fade away, and that's where True Widow's sound lies.

Facebook event:

facebook.com/event

---

Teeth of the Sea: BRANCHAGE Dazed & Confused article

2011-10-05T10:17:00.003+01:00

Teeth of the Sea discuss producing their spectacular score to accompany Neil Marshall's 'Doomsday' film at last week's Branchage film festival in Jersey.

Read the Dazed & Confused piece:

branchage-teeth-of-the-sea

---

Oneida / Mugstar - Collisions 02 - LAUNCH!

2011-10-02T08:01:00.004+01:00

ONEIDA / MUGSTAR - Collisions II (LAUNCH044)

!!!!!!!AVAILABLE FROM TODAY!!!!!!!

For millions of years a signal emitted earthbound. It had circled the heavens, awaiting a moment of destiny that might never come. Now the long wait is ending, an ancient experiment is about to reach it’s climax.... time we left this world today.

This isolated event observes The People of the Upright Stone: New York’s Oneida and Liverpool’s Mugstar, exert overdriven oscillating forces on an interstellar trip of humming ohm amps and shifting clusters where time shuttles flickering back and forth between eons.

Explore the second in the Rocket Recordings odyssean collisions series; mission operations ‘Collisions 02’ and joyride this twin engine release, immersing yourself wide eyed with dilated pupils into this starry firmament.

The proceedings lift off with Oneida’s moiré patterned ‘Shahin’s Bong’. This pulsating kaleidoscopic maelstrom illuminates Oneida at their most free’est, from its beginning which implodes under its own stress, wherein drums scatter, amps buzz, strings are stressed, and modulators hum, the O’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ in reverse, twists and turns, drops in drops out, gradually becoming coherent to the point of no return. Then like an explosive bolt bursting your head to a classic Oneida groove, a dubbed out motorik rush cuts its way through a soup of analogue fuzz and drones. Oneida drive you to an outer limit of the visual field, you have been shown infinity, empty of all stars.

INTERMISSION

Mugstar set chase with their own odyssean endeavor ‘European Nihilism’, the Aurora Borealis viewed from within. With the hum and drone of layered synths, drawing the listener in, these psychedelic warlords hit you hard with a supercolossal Hawkwind’esque rockout like a centrifugal force that twists and turns morphing on a continual humming of valves, into the artifice of repetitive noise until at saturation point the asymptotic curve annihilates you in the quest for the perfect ion. The music then clings on the brink of vertigo and hangs immersed in an ethereal gulf like swarms of sentient electric particles, until eventually breaking through to a blissed out finale with echoed vocals ushering in a new light. We must admit, this could be Mugstars masterpiece!

So celebrate O/M’s twin attributes with us and emerge from your chrysalis, the way out is through the unhinged doors!

Hear a taster of both tracks:

Oneida / Mugstar - Collisions 02 by Rocket Recordings

INVADA RECORDS have been provided with a limited amount of GREY O/M vinyl's - these are NOT available in the shops - only black version will be, so once they have sold out, that is it.

Get your limited GREY vinyl here:

invadarecords.bigcartel

For more information e-mail:

rocketrecordings@yahoo.co.uk

ONEIDA:
enemyhogs
facebookOneida

MUGSTAR:
mugstar
facebook/Mugstar

---

Serpentina Satélite - "Nueva Ola"

2011-10-02T07:48:00.003+01:00

Serpentina Satélite live footage from 2009, these guys definitely have 'something to say'.

On the 28th of October 'Serpentina Satelite - Nothing to Say' 'will be available through Trip in Time in all its 12" Rocket designed artwork glory.

Check out these South American Stooges in space & especially the Rocket released LP 'Mecanica Celeste'.

facebook.com/serpentinasatelite

serpentinasatelite.bandcamp

Trip in Time:

tripintime

---

Rocket Probes September 2011 Playlist

2011-09-29T12:35:00.013+01:00

Serpentina Satelite - Nothing to Say

(The South American Stooges in space 1st album, the best band of its kind we've heard from that continent)

Pulp - Space
(Spacey synths, fuzz wah guitar, free drumming and monotone Jarvis dialogue on space travel that morphs into a kraut/glam stomp)

Dwarr - Animals
(Lost 80s metal album that’s recently been unearthed by Drag City...sounds like a slightly prog'ier Sabbath with added moog squelches and wah)

Motorhead - On Parole / 1977 Peel Session
("You can call me Motorhead, alright!")

Belong - Come See
(US shoegaze that sticks a thick haze of guitar/keyboard fuzz and ethereal vocals over a motorik drum machine and looping bass)

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
(For usual readers this may seem like an odd choice for the Rocket playlist, but this lp has been on Mission Control’s decks a lot this year...a great album where more than once she and her band tip their hat to ‘Can’)

Ashtray Navigations – 3 Rockets Thicken
(Another great 7" from the fantastic Trensmat records)

Hawkwind - Leave No Star Unturned

(You're trying to fly, you get nowhere)

Pipedream - The Journey from Hamburg to Iceland

(Del Dettmar's mid 90's space rock voyage)

Cave - Neverendless

(Motorik exertion's)

Dinosaur Jnr - You're Living All Over Me

(Pivotal album for Rocket, along with Mudhoney, this is where we first heard Fuzz guitars)

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

(A plethora of YLT sides, moods and shades)

---

White Hills European Tour 2011

2011-09-29T10:02:00.005+01:00

WHITE HILLS EUROPEAN TOUR DATES 2011

30.09. NL Den Bosch W 2
01.10. B Leuven Het Depot
02.10. GER Cologne Underground
03.10. GER Heidelberg Kosmodrom
04.10. A Wien Arena
05.10. A Feldkirch Graf Hugo
06.10. GER Stuttgart 1210
07.10. GER Weimar E Werk
08.10. GER Cottbus Blue Moon Festival
09.10. GER Berlin White Trash
10.10. GER Hamburg Molotow Bar
11.10. GER Bielefeld AJZ
12.10. GER Nürnberg Kunstverein
13.10. CH Olten Coq d´or
14.10. GER Würzburg Cafe Cairo
15.10. GER Darmstadt 603 qm
17.10. ITA Savignano Sul Rubicone (RN) Sidro Club
18.10. ITA Roma Sinister Noise Club
19.10. ITA Quero (BL) Plettro Alternative Sound
20.10. CH Martigny Les Caves Du Manoir
21.10. F Besancon La Cour des Miracles
22.10. NL Maastricht, Musikgiterij
23.10. UK Birmingham, Supersonic Festival
24.10. UK London, Corsica

Keep your eye out for the up & coming re-release of 'Heads On Fire', available on Rocket in all good shops on the 24th of October.

----

GNOD confirmed for Roadburn 2012

2011-09-28T17:36:00.006+01:00

After many rumors of an impending epiphany, the all-mighty GNOD are finally confirmed at ROADBURN 2012.

Here’s what Roadburn have to say:

It’s really hard to pin down Salford UK’s psych/metal renegades Gnod, their distinctive take on psychedelia is not just otherworldly, but also grounded in terrestrial styles like Afro-beat, krautrock, drone, jazz, space rock and even dance music. Gnod excels at the illusion of repetition whereby its motorik rhythms underpin a myriad of shifting hypnotic textures. As of now, Gnod have released approx. twelve full-length albums, each seemingly materializing from the aether, as the band is surrounded in mysticism. Their lengthy live-jams are created by an ever changing cast, of which there is hardly any information available.

However, Gnod will leave their collective residency at Salford’s Islington Mill — a creative arts space where they live and rehearse — to fog our brains and eyeballs with a wash of hallucinations, while enticing our bodies to lose control to the propulsive, repetitive beats at the very same time. Gnod will play Roadburn 2012 on Friday, April 13th.

Check further details here:
roadburn-2012

---

Pre-Sale ONEIDA / MUGSTAR - Ltd Grey vinyl available

2011-09-26T10:56:00.009+01:00

ONEIDA / MUGSTAR - Collisions II (LAUNCH044)

Release Date: 03 October 2011

INVADA RECORDS have been provided with a limited amount of GREY O/M vinyl's - these are NOT available in the shops - only black version will be, so once they have sold out, that is it.

Pre-order your limited GREY vinyl here:

invadarecords.bigcartel

For more information e-mail:

rocketrecordings@yahoo.co.uk

---

Teeth of the Sea - Aquarius Records review

2011-09-26T10:36:00.008+01:00

Possible one of the the best record shop's in the world Aquarius Records (in San Francisco) have written the following about Teeth of the Sea - 'Your Mercury'.

The AQ review is to coincide with the US availability of the LP which was only available on import up until now & we couldn't have agreed more with their comments.

We apologise for reproducing it on our blog, but as we feel they totally hit the nail upon the head, it just had to be used.

Teeth of the Sea - Your Mercury

This is the second lp from UK psychedelic instrumental space rockers Teeth Of The Sea, their third record over all, and another twisted batch of heavy twisted psych, it makes sense that it would be on Rocket, home to other aQ fave space rock heavies like The Heads and Gnod, and these guys traffic in a similar sound, but one that is most definitely all their own, just check out opener "The Ambassador", one of THEE heaviest, trippiest slabs of space psych we've ever heard, thick low slung bassline, weird burbling electronics, tripped out processed vox, all hazy and buzzy and gristly, it sounds like a spaced out dirge rock Butthole Surfers almost, the guitars thick and distorted, the song a lugubrious crawl, until a second guitar swoops in, playing a slithery stoner riff, and the horns, the HORNS, bleating out a dark funereal drone, those freaky voices making everything way more druggy and demented, the drums come pounding in, it's not until about halfway through, that the guitars unwind wild peals of psychedelic leads, the drums grow more tribal, and yet, it never full explodes into conventional space rock, this is something else entirely, the song blisses out part way through, weird sci-fi squelches and more horns drifting in an expanse of distant guitar shimmer, and muted rhythms, everything gradually fading out leaving just tabla like drumming, subtle organs and swirls of electronic bloops and bleeps, and hell if that's not the way to start a record...

And the rest of the record, defies convention still by never quite settling down into anything even resembling proper space rock or psych rock, even compared to their last record we reviewed, this is as about far out as it gets. The next track is all drum machine, weird industrial electronics, processed voices, swirling synths, almost like some heavier take on Goblin / Carpenter soundtrack stuff. The title is all horn flecked slow burn drift, a gradual build to a more post rock crunch, building to a sort of Godspeed climax, but one that's all super high end guitar tangles draped over the otherwise seemingly sedate sonic background, dramatic and tense and surprisingly cinematic. The rest of the record continues to take the concept of psychedelic space rock and twist it all up, from pulsing kosmische synths, to almost cheesy, eighties sounding soundtrack music, like a more metal Beverly Hills Cop or Miami Vice (!), to murky hazy washed out ambience, all muted processed guitars and blurred gauzy melodies, to a weird final track that's a hazy shoegazey soundscape of minimal drumming, chiming guitars, and lots and lots of horns, again very haunting and cinematic, and really quite gorgeous.

Weird these guys seems to still lurk so beneath the radar, might be cuz they're just to far out and freaky for the psych/space rock crowd, which is a shame really, cuz this is some of the coolest stuff we've heard in ages.

Check out another Rocket favourite 'Gum Takes Tooth's review, plus load more cool stuff here:

aquariusrecords

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GNOD & HIGH WOLF (Annapurna illusion's alter ego) - Live

2011-09-26T10:01:00.005+01:00

To assist the currently available Annapurna Illusion - Life is an Illusion relaese, Rocket have posted this Soundcloud collaborative live set by GNOD & HIGH WOLF (Annapurna Illusion's alter ego). The gig was recorded in support of Teeth of the Sea's 'Your Mercury' album Launch - in 22nd November 2010 & we rather like it.

High Wolf with Gnod - Live by Rocket Recordings

Annapurna Illusion - Life is an Illusion is available in all good record shops.

See & hear:

life-is-illusion

Take a look at the vinyl images:

annapurna-illusion

For more information e-mail:

rocketrecordings@yahoo.co.uk

Further listening & info:
myspace.com/annapurnaillusions
myspace.com/highwolfmusic
kaugummi.fr/wingedsunrecords
facebook.com/pages/high-wolf/

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Serpentina Satelite - Nothing to Say - available 28th OCTOBER

2011-09-26T09:46:00.003+01:00

On the 28th of October 'Serpentina Satelite - Nothing to Say' 'will be available through Trip in Time in all its 12" Rocket designed artwork glory.

Check out these South American Stooges in space & especially the Rocket released LP 'Mecanica Celeste'.

facebook.com/serpentinasatelite

serpentinasatelite.bandcamp

Trip in Time:

tripintime

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GNOD - INGNODWETRUST - Concluding Rite - Drumcunt Remix & Psychotropic Zone Review

2011-09-26T09:21:00.011+01:00

The psychedelic music club 'Psychotropic Zone' have reviewed INGNODWETRUST, read it here:

PsychotropicZone

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Listen to the Drumcunt remix of Vatican

GNOD 'Vatican' (DrumCunt remix) by DRMCNT

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GNOD have posted some of their back catalogue for your listening pleasure:

soundcloud.com/gnod

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Annapurna Illusion - Life Is An Illusion - LAUNCH!

2011-09-19T10:01:00.019+01:00

Annapurna Illusion - Life Is An Illusion (Launch043)

!!!!!!!OUT TODAY!!!!!!!

In the highs of the Nepalese mountains, the spirits of the dead
are alive and well, their mantra’s chant atop mossy ruined
temples to the Kosmische jams brewed by the melted soul
of the mysterious Annapurna Illusion.

Rocket Recordings are proud to introduce the pyramidal
meditationist ‘Life is an Illusion’ album by France’s
Annapurna Illusion, the evil twin of Not Not Fun’s High Wolf.

Annapurna Illusion's dark Krautrock aesthetic reveal itself in
tracks showered in shamanic dust and rolled tight in a soupy,
psychedelic batter. Life is an Illusion is scattered with fizzing
electric guitars and ambient ragas which unfurl with the might
of a psychedelic blizzard, fogging the sponges of the brain and
eyeballs with a wash of hallucinations where Ash Ra Temple
jam for hours on end with Loop.

Tropical repetitive rhythms drone and drift, guided by a swarm
of breezy effects and celestial layered synths that engulf the
base of the mountain in hypnotic swirls of colourful head
spinning rituals before zipping airborne to glide in a state
of tranced euphoria.

Escapism is bottled and prescribed with each dose of these
6 entrancing mysteries, Life is an Illusion draws from the
same smoke filled breath as fellow explorers Emeralds,
Stellar Om Space, Dylan Ettinger as well as those great
Kosmische artists, AR Machines, Klaus Schulze
and Harmonia.

Proceed from the dream outward and encounter the
Annapurna cinerama in its full illusion.

Tracklist:

Annapurna Illusion - Life Is An Illusion is available from all good record shops.

Annapurna Illusion - Life is an Illusion - Album Sampler by Rocket Recordings

Take a look at the vinyl:

annapurna-illusion-life-is-illusion

For more information e-mail:

rocketrecordings@yahoo.co.uk

Further listening & info:
myspace.com/annapurnaillusions
myspace.com/highwolfmusic
kaugummi.fr/wingedsunrecords
facebook.com/pages/high-wolf/

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The Ransom Note: Nothing Is Volume 1 - featuring exclusive Teeth of the Sea remix

2011-09-19T09:45:00.010+01:00

For those Rocketeer's with a more open mind, check out The Ransom Note website Nothing Is Volume 1 mix and short interview with co Rocket's Rik Motör DJ, Jamie Paton.

The mix features an exclusive Cage & Aviary remix of Teeth of the Sea's - Sentimental Journey

theransomnote.co.uk/Jamie-Paton-Exclusive-Mix/

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Rocket Recordings - Label Review by Hawkwind Biographer

2011-09-19T09:35:00.006+01:00

Does exactly what it says on the tin... Hawkwind biographer Ian Abrahams reviews all things SpaceRock related, from CDs and DVDs to Demos and Myspace Pages. Plus Psych, Stoner, Garage, Krautrock and whatever else strikes a power chord or two!

Read Ian's reviews for the latest Rocket releases:

Annapurna Illusion - Life is an Illusion

Mugstar / Oneida - Collisions 02

Gnod - INGNODWETRUST

spacerockreviews.rocket-recordings

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Supernormal Review - The Wire

2011-09-19T09:30:00.002+01:00

The Wire magazine have done a write up of this years Supernormal Festival, here is a link to a 2 page PDF of the event:

here

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Branchage Festival 2011 - Teeth of the Sea

2011-09-17T08:12:00.004+01:00

The Guardian newspaper has written a short review of the up & coming Branchage Festival, this one sounds like a perfect Rocket event & of course features our very own Teeth of the Sea, 'an eclectic mix of music-backed movies', read it here:

guardian.co.uk/film/2011

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Branchage Festival 2011

-------------------------------------

Teeth of the Sea presents REAPER

[a re-imagining of Neil Marshall’s DOOMSDAY]

Saturday, 24th September
Jersey Arts Centre

20:30 - 21:30

Teeth Of The Sea, London's most intrepid and adventurous psychedelic rock band, have always looked to the extraordinary and outlandish for inspiration, and been as influenced by books and films as by music. With this in mind, some of their biggest influences include the films of Neil Marshall: Dog Soldiers and The Descent have both made their marks on the band's psyche, but by far the closest to the band's collective heart is Doomsday, the hyperreal, volatile and audacious 2008 Frankenstein's monster of a movie that follows a perilous journey to the maws of Armageddon via a killer virus, a retro-futurist medieval society ruled by gangs of marauding punks and/or Malcolm McDowell, and no small amount of blood and gore, putting the viewer in mind of the very best classic 2000AD scripts.

One of the most attractive facets of Doomsday for Teeth Of The Sea has always been its freewheeling approach, not to mention its disregard for conventional notions of narrative structure and a disregard for genre. With this in mind, the band have decided to offer a re-imagining of the movie, taking the most visceral, dramatic and colourful debacles and denouements and turning them into a riot of disorientation that they could then match with a soundtrack that would do its damnedest to challenge it for sheer chutzpah and otherworldly allure. The result, Reaper (named after the movie's killer virus) is a kind of psychedelic reconfiguration that the band will interact with musically to create something truly original and nightmarishly thrilling. Indeed, if there is such a thing as hell on earth, this will hopefully be it.

For full programme line up and further details visit:

branchagefestival.com/programme/2011-09-24

facebook.com/BranchageFilmFestival

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Introducing: ONEIDA / MUGSTAR - Collisions II

2011-09-13T14:06:00.015+01:00

ONEIDA / MUGSTAR - Collisions II (LAUNCH044)

TRACKLIST:

01
ONEIDA
SHAHIN’S BONG
(15:32)

02
MUGSTAR
EUROPEAN NIHILISM
(16:39)

Release Date: 03 October 2011

For millions of years a signal emitted earthbound. It had circled the heavens, awaiting a moment of destiny that might never come. Now the long wait is ending, an ancient experiment is about to reach it’s climax.... time we left this world today.

This isolated event observes The People of the Upright Stone: New York’s Oneida and Liverpool’s Mugstar, exert overdriven oscillating forces on an interstellar trip of humming ohm amps and shifting clusters where time shuttles flickering back and forth between eons.

Explore the second in the Rocket Recordings odyssean collisions series; mission operations ‘Collisions 02’ and joyride this twin engine release, immersing yourself wide eyed with dilated pupils into this starry firmament.

The proceedings lift off with Oneida’s moiré patterned ‘Shahin’s Bong’. This pulsating kaleidoscopic maelstrom illuminates Oneida at their most free’est, from its beginning which implodes under its own stress, wherein drums scatter, amps buzz, strings are stressed, and modulators hum, the O’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ in reverse, twists and turns, drops in drops out, gradually becoming coherent to the point of no return. Then like an explosive bolt bursting your head to a classic Oneida groove, a dubbed out motorik rush cuts its way through a soup of analogue fuzz and drones. Oneida drive you to an outer limit of the visual field, you have been shown infinity, empty of all stars.

INTERMISSION

Mugstar set chase with their own odyssean endeavor ‘European Nihilism’, the Aurora Borealis viewed from within. With the hum and drone of layered synths, drawing the listener in, these psychedelic warlords hit you hard with a supercolossal Hawkwind’esque rockout like a centrifugal force that twists and turns morphing on a continual humming of valves, into the artifice of repetitive noise until at saturation point the asymptotic curve annihilates you in the quest for the perfect ion. The music then clings on the brink of vertigo and hangs immersed in an ethereal gulf like swarms of sentient electric particles, until eventually breaking through to a blissed out finale with echoed vocals ushering in a new light. We must admit, this could be Mugstars masterpiece!

So celebrate O/M’s twin attributes with us and emerge from your chrysalis, the way out is through the unhinged doors!

For more information e-mail:

rocketrecordings@yahoo.co.uk
For band information:

ONEIDA:
enemyhogs
facebookOneida

MUGSTAR:
mugstar
facebook/Mugstar

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GNOD Chaudelande Volume I - Pre-order

2011-09-13T13:04:00.009+01:00

Rocket would like to introduce 'Tamed Records' GNOD - Chaudelande Volume 1.
Having been sent the tracks by the band sometime back they have barely left our playlist & therefore we would like to support the band with our
highest approval
, so order your copy via the French label before they disappear.

PRE-ORDER !!! OUT 20TH OCTOBER 2011 !!!

tamedrecords.com

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BUY - Kandodo - The Heads side project

2011-09-09T11:49:00.005+01:00

Due to one of The Heads members becoming a father again the bands online shop will probably been alittle out of action for a short while.

Congratulations on the news, in the meantime frontman Simon Price's HEADS side project KANDODO is now available on CD via Rough Trade shops here:

roughtrade.com/shop

Further info is available here:

heads-side-project-kandodo

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Mugstar - 'Collisions 02' preview taster

2011-09-09T09:36:00.007+01:00

Liverpool's Mugstar have continued their remarkable journey traversing the sonic galaxy by teaming up with long-time influence Oneida.

The two bands are to collaborate on an epic 12" split vinyl Collisions 02 on Rocket released on Monday October 3rd.

Here is a sneak preview excerpt of the outro section of the Mugstar track thanks to 'Getintothis' website. (please note the wrong artwork is used on the site)

mugstar

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GNOD - Up & coming Gigs

2011-09-09T08:15:00.009+01:00

TRANSIENT CONSTELLATIONS

17th September

Gnod, Gum takes Tooth, Dethscalator, Drunk in Hell & More

Windmill Brixton, London
transientconstellations

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

14th October

UT!, Gnod & Float Riverer

Yorkshire House, Lancaster

facebook

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26th October

SILVER APPLES, Gnod & Nolan Watkinson

Night & Day, Manchester

nightnday

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HUNTERS MOON FESTIVAL

28th - 30th October

TONY CONRAD & more

Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim, Ireland

huntersmoonfestival

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Annapurna Illusion - Life is an Illusion - REVIEW

2011-09-08T12:05:00.010+01:00

Annapurna Illusion - Life Is An Illusion (Launch043)

Release Date: 19th September 2011

Rocket Mission control has received a second Annapurna Illusion review via The Liminal website, read the full review here:

theliminal.co.uk

Read what Julian Cope had to say:

headheritage.co.uk/addressdrudion

Read the press release:

introducing-annapurna-illusion

Further listening & info:
myspace.com/annapurnaillusions
myspace.com/highwolfmusic
kaugummi.fr/wingedsunrecords
facebook.com/pages/high-wolf/

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CAN: Tago Mago – 40th Anniversary 2CD Edition

2011-09-06T09:04:00.013+01:00

CAN: Tago Mago – 40th Anniversary 2CD Edition

Release Date: 14 November 2011
Halleluwah! Exhibitions in Germany
Deluxe Vinyl Box Set and
Unreleased Lost Tapes Box Set details for 2012

Spoon Records and Mute announce the release of the 40th anniversary edition of the classic Can album Tago Mago on 14 November 2011.

The new edition of this genre-defying album comes packaged in the original UK artwork for the first time since 1971, and includes a bonus CD featuring 50 minutes of unreleased live material from 1972, remastered in 2011.

Being such fans of CAN, Rocket just had to post this up, read more here:

mute.com/can/tago-mago-40th-anniversary-2cd-edition

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