As announced a few weeks ago, Gnod's Marlene Ribeiro is releasing her first solo record for Rocket Recordings and first album under her own name.
'Toquei no Sol' which is released on 10 February is a fresh new chapter for this unique artist, by far the most melodic and transcendent outing yet for her hypnotic dreampop.
Marlene said this about the latest single, the title track 'Toquei no Sol': "This track is about self-reflection , where I choose to set it in an imaginary tropical alien world. Tells the tale of unwillingly finding yourself flying too close to the sun."
Watch video for 'Toquei no Sol' made by Ovo Estrelado here:
Portuguese fans should pick up a copy via Lovers & Lollypops Bandcamp.
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Toquei no Sol is a record with a very distinctive and potent sense of place, paradoxically despite having been woven together from recordings made in Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Madeira and Salford. Marlene’s fleet-footed approach to melody rings through even as the tracks conjure visions of heat-hazes, meditative spaces and late-night epiphanies.
Although listeners may hear echoes of the loop-driven psychedelia of Panda Bear’s 'Person Pitch' or the incantatory ululations of Pocahaunted in these beguiling soundscapes and magick-strewn mantras, the truth is that the aesthetic here is very much Marlene’s alone.
Marlene is playing a couple of rare shows – with more to be announced:
9 March / Bristol / Strange Brew 19–23 April / Tilburg / Roadburn Festival
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have just released 'Ultimate Hammer' the second single from their forthcoming album Land of Sleeper which is released on 17 February.
Watch the fantastic video for 'Ultimate Hammer' above.
We asked Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs to tell us something about what his ferocious new single and guitarist Adam said “Ultimate Hammer is the by-product of being trapped in the house and listening to too much ZZ Top, if there is such a thing."
Though, Pigs' other guitarist and producer Sam Grant says: “If there were a quintessential Pigs track, this would probably be it, so it was an obvious move to make this one the album opener."
And vocalist Matt Baty says “Everything at the moment feels like it's moving at one hell of a speed. Momentous events pass by in the blink of an eye while we try to keep our heads steady on a planet spinning roughly 1,000 miles per hour. Maybe it's always been this way but it sure is hard not to feel dizzy. What a time to be alive.”
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'Land Of Sleeper' comes housed in amazing 'Callum Rooney' sleeve art with obi strip and 'Oz' style lyrics poster. The CD and several different vinyl variants are available in these variants:
You can pick-up the ltd 'Rocket Exclusive' (Orange/Yellow Cloud) vinyl via the bands official website link below (not Bandcamp), where you can also pick up ltd edition t-shirts and tickets:
Our good friends at Rough Trade have an exclusive 'Deep Sleep' (Blue/black Splatter) vinyl.
Indie stores will be carrying 'Lucid Dreaming' (Orange) exclusive vinyl and all stores will be selling a ltd 'Black Night' (Black) vinyl edition. The album is being released via Missing Piece in the USA.
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The band have added loads more USA, European and UK dates. Tickets go on sale at 10am local time Friday 27th Pigsx7.com The full list of show's now reads:
UK SPRING 2023:
17th February - Bristol - Rough Trade – SOLD OUT 18th February - London - Rough Trade East – SOLD OUT 19th February - Brighton - Chalk 23rd February - Gateshead - The Sage 24th February - Edinburgh - The Liquid Rooms 25th February - Kendal - The Brewery 26th February - Lincoln - Lincoln Drill Hall 2nd March - Cambridge - Junction 3rd March - Ipswich - The Baths – SOLD OUT 4th March - Hastings - The Crypt 5th March - Leicester - O2 Academy 13th April - Milton Keynes - The Craufurd Arms 14th April - Stoke-on-Trent - The Sugarmill 15th April - Hebden Bridge - Trades Club – SOLD OUT 16th April - Stockton-on-Tees - Georgian Theatre 20th April - York - The Crescent – SOLD OUT 21st April - Newport - Le Pub – SOLD OUT 22nd April - Portsmouth - Wedgewood Rooms – SOLD OUT 23rd April - Hertford - Corn Exchange
(Above shows with support from Luminous Bodies, Kulk, Judy Brush and Me Lost Me)
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UK AUTUMN 2023:
23rd September - Glasgow - Queen Margaret Union 29th September - Bristol - SWX 30th September - Manchester - Ritz 5th October - Sheffield - Foundry 6th October - London - Kentish Town Forum
(Support: Bonnacons of Doom)
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NORTH AMERICA - MARCH/APRIL 2023:
11th March - Brooklyn, NY - Saint Vitus Bar – SOLD OUT 13th-18th March - Austin, TX - SXSW 21st March - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon 22nd March - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop 24th March - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios 25th March - Seattle, WA - Madame Lou's 26th March - Vancouver, BC - Wise Hall 28th March - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village 29th March - Toronto, ON - The Garrison 31st March - Boston, MA - Middle East 1st April - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's 2nd April - Washington, DC - DC9 4th April - Manhattan, NY - Mercury Lounge
(Brooklyn support: White Hills. Boston, Philadelphia and Washington DC support: Richard Dawson - solo)
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EUROPE - MAY 2023:
6th May - Nijmegen, NL - Sonic Whip Festival 7th May - Utrecht, NL - Ekko 8th May - Koln, DE - Bumann & Sohn 9th May - Hamburg, DE - Molotow 10th May - Copenhagen, DK - Stengade 12th May - Berlin, DE - Urban Spree 13th May - Leipzig, DE - Trip Festival 15th May - Bern, CH - ISC Club 16th May - Lyon, FR - Le Periscope 17th May - Paris, FR - Point Ephemere 18th May - Orleans, FR - L'Astrolabe 19th May - Lille, FR - Le Grand Mix 20th May - Antwerp, BE - Trix
Transcendence through repetition beamed via an aesthetic vision steeped in mystery: welcome to the world of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s Smote, an entity opening up uncanny new psychic pathways. ‘Genog’ - the outfit’s second release on Rocket Recordings following 2021’s eerie transmission ‘Drommon’, shows that Smote’s elliptical casting of bleak magick is only growing more powerful as it gathers momentum.
The brainchild of Daniel Foggin, Smote has evolved seemingly of it’s own volition. “I had the idea for years” he relates, “I love Pärson Sound, Träd, Gräs Och Stenar, Traditional Irish Folk and all sorts of different Drone and Folk music. It was simply finding the opportunity to sit down and get recording. A very heavy influence that affects Smote is fantasy as a genre, and the atmosphere that can be created via story-telling.”
The five vivid extrapolations on Genog conjure differing spiritual realms, yet the verdant flute-and-drum-driven ‘Fenhop’, the resonant, cryptic ‘Hlaf’ and the overwhelming noise-driven intensity of the closing freakout ‘Banhus’ combine and coalesce to offer one unified vision, building furious momentum in a manner that unites the pastoral with the arcane and otherworldy.
The musical approach of Smote may have started out as a resolutely DIY one, yet from the humble origins of bedroom and rehearsal room recordings, the band has now become a full-fledged and powerful live band, whose appearances at festivals like Roadburn, Le Guess Who and Brave Exhibitions have already caused a considerable stir. Testimony, indeed to the kind of spectacular mental vistas and towering, intimidating sound-worlds which are made manifest on Genog.
“I love world building and folk tales” adds Foggin, who cites the 2013 film ‘Hard To Be A God’ as the single biggest influence on Smote’s aesthetic - “An incredible example of mood and atmosphere throughout, an absolute masterpiece.” True to form, perhaps the centrepiece of Genog is the mighty ‘Lof’. Driven by an ominous and bewitching central riff, this totem of monomania transcends its post-Velvets, folk and ‘70s Swedish Psych influences to thunder forth singularly akin to a ceremonial procession from a place as enigmatic and daunting as the the quasi-medieval pandemonium of the same film.
Inhabiting a landscape where pursuit of the psychedelic is so often hampered by cliche, mannerism and the canonical rulebook. It can be rare to witness a visionary doggedly pursuing their own crooked and idiosyncratic path into the mystic with few co-ordinates apparent. This is where Smote come in. Earthy, ritualistic and richly cinematic in aspect, Genog is an avatar guiding the listener to dark and beguiling imaginary landscapes.
We are extremely proud to announce that Rocket Recordings will be guest curator at this year’s Roadburn Festival on 19-23 April.
Roadburn has been a festival we have been involved in since 2006. We have seen many Rocket bands grace the festival’s stages over the years – so we thought we would celebrate our 25th anniversary in Tilburg, showcasing a selection of Rocket artists.
Roadburn’s aesthetic is one of not standing still, always pushing its own boundaries, and that is something we as a label have always believed in, hence this collaboration couldn’t be more perfect. We loved Walter’s idea of Rocket showcasing our ‘new’ bands instead of only looking back and celebrating the past. So we are very excited to bring a diverse line-up of artists and sounds for the Roadburn faithful to immerse in:
Alison Cotton When we discussed who should play, Alison’s name was top of the list. Her mesmerising live performance needed to be experienced by the Roadburn audiences.
Alison Cotton / Dawn Terry We wanted to bring a one-off, unique performance to the festival and as were we aware that Alison and Dawn Terry (from Bong) had discussed collaborating sometime in the future, we thought this could be the perfect time to make it happen. We have no idea what the results will be, but with their combined talent, it is guaranteed to be spellbinding.
J. Zunz We are chuffed that J. Zunz is able to make it over from Mexico for the festival. We finally got to see her addictive live show last summer – her unique repetitive, kosmische explorations will definitely get the Roadburn ‘heads’ dancing in a trance!
Holy Scum We needed a band to ‘bring the noise’ to Roadburn, so there’s no better band to do that than Holy Scum. Their dense fog of sound is guaranteed to get the audiences smiling, just bring your earplugs.
Marlene Ribeiro Marlene Ribeiro (Negra Branca / Gnod) brings songs from her stunning and hauntingly psychedelic debut album ‘Toquei No Sol’ to the stage for a rare live performance.
The Shits This band are so new to our roster we haven’t even announced they are going to be releasing their forthcoming album on Rocket yet! But wow, what a band, they blew us away at last summer’s Supernormal Festival so we are extremely excited to add them to the ever growing Rocket family.
Teeth of the Sea Ok, so Teeth of the Sea are not a ‘new’ Rocket band, we have been releasing their records since their debut release in January 2009 – and they are a band who have also graced the Roadburn stage in 2013. But with a new album being promised for late 2023, this will be the opportunity to witness the bands new music for the first time. Walter said to us, "we need a band like Teeth of the Sea as we have nothing else like them on the bill this year"…but tbh, there is no one like Teeth of the Sea, they are completely unique, the archetypal Rocket band!
And before you all ask, we are not repeating Rocket 20 and having a Rocket 25 party – our birthday celebrations will be here at Roadburn, so we hope the Rocket faithful will join us for it!
We are ecstatic to be able to bring you the news that your favourite Russian four piece Gnoomes have announced that they will be releasing their fourth album called 'Ax Ox' on 3rd March.
Watch the hallucinogenic video for the first single to be released, the dance-floor driven 'Loops' via the link below. The video (one that the 'Butthole Surfers' would have been proud of) was directed by the talented Perm based artist Baadwrk:
'Ax Ox' is available on ltd edition 'Blue Swirl' via the Bandcamp link below, or you can pick it up the ltd 'Oxblood Vinyl' from your favourite record shop:
As musicians across the world have watched the last decade systematically eating away at the infrastructure by which they pursue their art, triumphs against adversity have sometimes entered the realm of cliche .Yet few bands have undergone quite the travails that Perm, Russia’s Gnoomes have on the road to the release of their fourth release on Rocket Recordings, Ax Ox.
From such traumatic circumstances, with the band having overcome the stress of a pandemic, illness, depression and serious turmoil in their home country to reach a point where they can offer their music to the world, have arrived a kaleidoscopic and questing vision shot through with potent melancholia and strident optimism.
Ax Ox runs through a gamut of vibrant emotion across its eleven tracks, from the elemental blast of kraut-pop that is ‘The Neighbour’ to the crystalline and techno-fied ‘Loops’, and across moments of jarring and skewed ambience such as ‘Mirror’ and ‘The Bridge’. Here the component parts that have always made up Gnoomes’ fresh and wide-eyed aesthetic - dreampop radiance, bold electronic experimentation and the propulsive motorik drive which moves them onward –are rendered still more vivid and transcendent, the product of a band unafraid to cross boundaries in pursuit of catharsis by any means necessary, and one still hopeful in spite of all that fate can throw at them.
This album also chronicles a fractious relationship which the band have with their home country -on the one hand, this is perhaps their most explicitly Russian album to date, and the first one in which they’ve sung in their native tongue - a decision they made as a means of supporting a rapidly evolving and inspiring scene in Russia. “Feeling yourself as a part of something bigger is a great inspiration. That’s why the intention to sing in Russian was very organic. We saw that our audience is getting older with us and our music could have had more connections with these people, if we sing in Russian” says the band’s Sasha Piankov.
“The last five years before the pandemic are considered to be the golden times for our music community” he adds “It was a beautiful embryo, which could grow into a very interesting creature, but it was simply killed by the stupid plans of the particular people. Many artists have already spoken out, and they’re not supporting this senseless war, but they get quickly shut up by the government.The list of artists who are not allowed to play in Russia anymore is growing up every day. It’s very painful to watch this process unfolding in front of our eyes”.
As with many other Russian artists and musicians, Sasha and his wife Masha Piankova have both been forced to leave the country when mobilisation was announced in pursuit of safety, but this album still bears the hallmarks of an album influenced by the very specific experience of living in Russia in the last three decades. “In our opinion this album could be a psychedelic musical about growing up and living in the Post Soviet Russia” relates Sasha “If you watched(Adam Curtis’ documentary series) Traumazone, it’s not complicated really to imagine the visual part of the musical!”
Ax Ox ultimately reflects something of an odyssey for a complex and inhospitable modern era, and perhaps the centrepiece of the record - the moment which most sums up the continuum reflected inits heartfelt yet pragmatic nature - is the uplifting kosmische travelogue of ‘Eternal Trans Siberian’.As Sasha points out, this has become “some sort of manifesto, pretty much inspired by Stereolab. It’s a metaphor of what’s going on to our country. It feels like we’re traveling on a rusty and wrecked train through space and time. The epochs change, but the problems stay the same and we don’t know how it’s possible, but the train is still moving”.
Gnoomes have announced a series of live dates, with more to come that can't be announced just yet:
26 Jan / Batumi / Place 10 Feb / Tbilisi / Spirali Fest - Dust 23 Mar / Newcastle / Cumberland Arm Tickets 25 Mar / Sheffield / Delicious Clam 26 Mar / Birmingham / The Night Owl 29 Mar / Norwich / Voodoo Daddy's Showroom 01 Apr / Bristol / Crofters Rights Tickets 25 Apr / Le Mans / Brasserie Septante Deux 26 Apr / Angers / Joker’s 27 Apr / Tours / Le Bateau Ivre 28 Apr / Nantes / Lune Froide
A travelogue that unites physical and inner space, a series of trance states rendered in vivid colour, a delirious portal into the ether. Marlene Ribeiro’s debut for Rocket Recordings and first album under her own name is all of this and much more. 'Toquei no Sol' is a fresh new chapter for this unique artist, by far the most melodic and transcendent outing yet for her hypnotic dreampop.
This is only the latest release in a long history of sonic experimentation for Marlene, which includes her previous work as Negra Branca and as a member of Gnod, not to mention collaborations with Valentina Magaletti and Thurston Moore.
Watch the John O'Carroll made video to 'You Do It', the first single to be revealed from 'Toquei no Sol' above.
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'Toquei no Sol' is available on ltd edition 'Sun Yellow' vinyl via this link:
Portuguese fans should pick up a copy via Lovers & Lollypops Bandcamp.
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'Toquei no Sol' is a record with a very distinctive and potent sense of place, paradoxically despite having been woven together from recordings made in Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Madeira and Salford.
It’s genesis came via a visit to Marlene’s maternal grandmother Emilia, whose influence as well as the sounds of her kitchen in Portugal can be heard on the album’s first track ‘Quatra Palavras’.
“Emilia ended up getting excited about me being able to record things there and then and - total news to me - told me she used to sing a lot when she was younger to the point of getting offered studio time but refusing it as she was fearful of what that could imply in those times” relates Marlene “From that point I planned to include her in this record as sort of the chance she never had of getting her voice out there.”
Elsewhere, a disarmingly catchy and irresistible grace is married to a utilitarian approach to sound and texture. The ritualistic “Sangue De Lua de Lobo” (first released on a Sofia records compilation Songs Of The Lunar Eclipse) contains random objects from Marlene’s then-garden in Ireland, whereas on the drifting, beatific ‘Forever’ the percussion tracks are constructed from the sounds of pots and pans in her own Salford kitchen.
Yet at all times her fleet-footed approach to melody rings through even as the tracks conjure visions of heat-hazes, meditative spaces and late-night epiphanies. Although listeners may hear echoes of the loop-driven psychedelia of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch or the incantatory ululations of Pocahaunted in these beguiling soundscapes and magick-strewn mantras, the truth is that the aesthetic here is. very much Marlene’s alone.
“It’s all a big misty haze of nostalgia, playfulness, self-reflection and hopefulness” is what Marlene reckons herself. Yet 'Toquei no Sol' is also a transporting vision from an artist.
Here is a run down of some of Rocket album inclusions in various end of year lists that we have seen:
The Quietus – Albums of the Year #12 Moundabout – Flowers Rot, Bring Me Stones #32 The Utopia Strong – International Treasure #37 Alison Cotton – The Portrait You Painted Of Me #42 Gnod – Hexen Valley
Get Into This #10 Goat – Oh Death #48 Gnod – Hexen Valley #53 Rubber Oh – Strange Craft #85 Holy Scum – Strange Desires #98 The Utopia Strong – International Treasure
To celebrate the end of another year, we have put together a playlist of tracks taken from Rocket Recordings 2022 launches - one track per release.
We are incredibly proud once again of the eclectic collection of sounds we have released this year. We are blessed by having some of the most talented artists around and are humbled that they trust us to release their art on Rocket.
Listen to this very special taster of Rocket's 2022 here:
We won't lie but 2022 has been a tough year, maybe the toughest in our 24 years of releasing music. Brexshit, Covid, War and all their knock on effects has meant running a DIY label has never been so hard. We are also extremely aware that is has been a tough year for many of you out there, so we really do appreciate all your continued support.
We know it is a cliché thing to say, but it is 100% true, if it wasn't for you buying our records, CD's, tapes and shirts then we would not be here. So thank you!!
And we have a special 40% Off 7 Day Sale that starts tomorrow at 8am which is the last Bandcamp Friday of the year, so the best time to fill those gaps in your collection, just use the promotional code 2022sale:
