18 Jul 2024

Rocket launch brand new online store


We are happy to share with you the news that Rocket Recordings has opened a brand new online store where from now on you can buy all Rocket physical, digital releases and merch etc.

The new store can be found at:

www.rocketrecordings.com

This new Rocket Recordings store is going to replace our current Bandcamp site that has serviced us extremely well over the years. The Rocket Bandcamp will continue to also have our digital releases available, but all physical stock will only be available via www.rocketrecordings.comAnd just like Bandcamp, you will receive a free download with your physical purchase.

To celebrate this new launch, we are offering you...

***25% off Sale***
For the first 10 days the Rocket store is open, you can get 25% off selected items. The sale will end on Sunday 28 July. 

***FREE Rocket Recordings Slipmat***
We have always wanted to have Rocket slipmats, so we have decided to get 200 made, and these will be given away FREE with the first 200 orders that spend £35 or more – first come first served.

Also...the new shop will have a 'News' section, which will replace this trusty Blog site which has been in use since 2008. We will not delete the blog though, we will keep it as an archive.

But this will be OUR LAST POST here!

We have wanted to create our own Rocket Recordings store for many, many years, see we are over the moon we can finally launch one for you now!

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11 Jul 2024

Teeth Of The Sea release new EP that features exclusive remixes by Goat, J. Zunz and Jamie Paton

Teeth of The Sea return with 'Get With The Program' - a five track EP that leads with the title track from the band's latest album 'Hive' and is backed with four incredible remixes of 'Hive' tracks by Goatfool (from Goat), J. Zunz and longtime Rocket collaborator Jamie Paton. 

Watch the tremendous Mike Bourne video for 'Get With The Program' above. 

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'Get With The Program' EP is released on 12 July and you can buy a ltd edition cassette, or download the EP from Bandcamp here:

Bandcamp

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Experience the might of Teeth Of The Sea live:

17 August / Compton Martin / ArcTanGent Festival
23–25 August / Muncaster Castle / Krankenhaus Festival

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Their coordinates as always set somewhere beyond the stars, Teeth Of The Sea are charging up their rocket engines for adventures anew. Hive, their sixth album, which saw them expanding and morphing their trademark psychotropic approach into still uncharted territories of cosmic melancholia and addictive melody, saw them gain plaudits aplenty from far afield, not least taking third place in The Quietus’ 2023 Albums Of The Year. 

Now, to round off this chapter in their storied history in style, they’re not only travelling to Manchester to embark on a live 6 Music session at the behest of Mark Riley and Gideon Coe but also releasing Get With The Program - that album’s noise-fuelled, speaker-shaking electro-industrial banger - as a Bandcamp-only limited cassette and digital single backed by remixes from a choice selection of friends that warp Hive’s trajectories into audial dimensions anew. 

Here Jamie Paton takes the avant-epic Megafragma and infuses it gleefully across two disparate versions with cosmic-disco effervescence and acid-fried exuberance. J. Zunz delivers a poignant and motorik-driven take on Æther that marries dubbed-out abstraction to post-punk pathos. Goat, meanwhile manoeuvre Liminal Kin into an insistent and percussion-driven rite of tension and release. 

With their new sehr kosmisch and wildly hedonistic live show debuted triumphantly at Acid Horse Festival in Wiltshire recently, and further festivals incoming at Krankenhaus and ArcTanGent, this ever-morphing entity is heading who knows where, and the more intrepid psychic travellers amongst us would be well advised to get on board.




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10 Jul 2024

Watch Smote play latest single live in Blank Studios

Watch Smote tear through latest single 'The Opinion Of The Lamb Pt. 1' live at Blank Studios above.

The original track is the first to be revealed from forthcoming album 'A Grand Stream' which is released on Ltd edition 2LP on 23 August.

Preorder here

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You can experience the mighty Smote live here:

2-4 Aug / Oxfordshire / Supernormal Festival
22 Aug / Glasgow / The Hug And Pint
24 Aug / Nottingham / JTsoar
25 Aug / London / Moor Beer Vaults
28 Aug / Ipswich / The Steamboat Tavern
29 Aug / Margate / WhereElse?
30 Aug / Bristol / Crofters Rights
31 Aug / Birmingham / Supersonic Festival
05 Sep / Paris / Supersonic
06 Sep / Den Haag / Paard
07 Sep / Ghent / Openair 9030
13 Sep / Newcastle / The Lubber Fiend

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1 Jul 2024

Ex-Easter Island Head's 'Norther' tops The Quietus 'AOTY So Far' list


We are blown away to see that Ex-Easter Island Head's album 'Norther' is No.1 in The Quietus's 'Top 100 Albums Of The Year So Far' list.

Not only that, Gnod's new album 'Spot Land' is at No.7 and Alison Cotton's latest album 'Engelchen' is at 63.

See the full rundown here:
https://thequietus.com/tq-charts/albums-of-the-year-so-far/best-albums-2024/

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As always, we thank The Quietus for believing in our bands and their art – the Quietus are the most honest and important music journalism out there, so if you are a fan of Rocket and our releases, then we highly recommend you supporting the Quietus and becoming a subscriber. They are having a massive discount on subscriptions at the moment too, so no better time:

https://thequietus.com/subscribers/

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5 Jun 2024

Smote reveal the release of gargantuan new double album

We are ecstatic to announce that Newcastle based band Smote are releasing a brand new double album called 'A Grand Stream' on 23 August.

Watch the Ali Crackett made video for the first track to be revealed 'The Opinion Of The Lamb Pt. 1 (Edit)' above.

Smote's Daniel Foggin says this about the track:
“This is Smote’s take on a party song, a quasi-dance track so to speak. The monomania is so prevalent here and pushed as hard as it possibly can be."

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'A Grand Stream' can be preordered now on Ltd edition 'Pink/Black' double vinyl, housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve via this Bandcamp link, or via all good record shops:

Bandcamp

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Last Summer, Daniel Foggin, guitarist, writer and chief architect of Smote, uprooted himself from his usual home in Newcastle to live and work in a farmhouse in Kelso, near the Scottish border. “Through the summer when I was working up there, myself and Rob (Smote drummer) would finish work and go sit by a small river and have a couple of beers in the sun, and it was the best thing ever” he relates “So I guess the philosophy is that to some people it looks like any other stream, but to us it was supreme happiness. That can be applied to a lot of things in life”.

Hence came the title of the fourth Smote album proper, one largely recorded in this same farmhouse - A Grand Stream.

It’s an album that’s the truest incarnation thus far of his vision for this band - a full-scale psychic voyage into the ether and a drone-and-repetition-fuelled series of incantations that takes simple, primal ingredients and utilises them for the purposes of aural sorcery, summoning spectres and revelations aplenty in its wake. What has emerged from Foggin’s sojourn in the Borders may be imbued with a rich rural intensity but it’s also perhaps the darkest and more foreboding work that Smote have made to date. As he notes himself, the rawness of this record occurred in tandem with its recording process. 

“I’ve done this pretty DIY, and done stuff that will give most sound engineers nightmares” he laughs, “I’ve got 4 microphones and an interface, and had a whacky set up of my sound city 120 and a 4x12, some synths and basic percussion stuff like tambourines and shakers all in a tiny living room. Then drums, bass and all the other glue was added in my practice room at later dates. I’m really happy with the production on this one; it feels like one sonic journey”.

Barely a truer word could be spoken on this 70-minute-plus opus, which embarks on the most intrepid dive imaginable into the audial Deep End. Whilst the folk-tinged, ceremonial ambience that Smote have made their trademark is present and correct here, as on the ominous rhythms of ‘Coming Out Of A Hedge Backwards’ and the uplifting cadences of opener ‘Sitting Stone Part 1’, Foggin and his cohorts also waste little time exploring new more eerie and ethereal textures and dimensions. The meditative ‘Chantry’ in particular sees them gravitate towards a headspace akin to the drone-based epiphanies of Kali Malone’s ‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’ filtered through the transcendent amplifier worship of ‘Earth 2’. 

“In terms of influences, I was listening to a lot of Anna Von Hausswolf, Maria W. Horn, and ØXN” reckons Foggin. “I think this is pretty significant in the fact that all of these artists combine traditional instrumentation with contemporary instrumentation, and it’s all fucking heavy. Not so much in the way of playing ridiculous mega riffs, but in terms of using the simple sound of instruments to create atmosphere. For example I think a violin playing double stops can be just as heavy as a cranked no-master volume guitar amp, just like an organ can be just as heavy as tuned oscillators and filtered synthesis”.

Said heaviness manifests itself most powerfully in the mammoth two-parter ‘The Opinion Of The Lamb’ – a near thirty-minute ritualistic voyage into the heart of darkness that melds Swans-style intensity, Trad Gras Och Stenar earthtones and Sunn O))) monomania to devastating effect. This marks the culmination of an album that takes this band – one who’ve always eschewed the cliches and stumbling blocks of all contemporary psych rock in favour of their own unique and wyrd vision - into a realm in which they transcend through willpower and skill alike into something preternaturally thrilling and intimidating, mapping out their own crepuscular new territory in the paranormal. Question is; dare you step over the threshold?

See Smote live:
29 Jun / Hyper Inverter Festival 
2-4 Aug / Oxfordshire / Supernormal Festival
22 Aug / Glasgow / The Hug And Pint
25 Aug / London / Moor Beer Vaults
28 Aug / Ipswich / The Steamboat Tavern
30 Aug / Bristol / Crofters Rights
31 Aug / Birmingham / Supersonic Festival 
05 Sep / Paris / Supersonic
06 Sep / Den Haag / Paard
07 Sep / Ghent / TBC


Front cover sculpture by: Rosie McLachlan

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31 May 2024

Gnod's new album 'Spot Land' is released today

"I can’t think of much higher praise for this record." 'Album Of The Week' 
The Quietus


"Embracing a new sense of freedom while retaining the essence that defines the band." Backseat Mafia

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Gnod's very special new album 'Spot Land' is released today.

You can buy this Bandcamp exclusive release on Purple Vinyl via this link below:


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See the mighty Gnod live:

27 August / Bristol / The Exchange
28 August / Utrecht / DB's
29 August / Nijmegen / Doornroosje
30 August / Rillaar / Down The Hill
31 August / London / Bush Hall
01 September / Todmorden / The Golden Lion

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With a recalibrated sound and a new sense of freedom, 'Spot Land’s five songs are tender and detailed, unfolding slowly with wistful guitar textures, brushed drums and interjections of lap steel, piano and kalimba.

As founder member Paddy Shine says, "the results sound like old GNOD and new GNOD at the same time". On the face of it, Spot Land is a big step away from the intense, loud, sludgy offerings found on the group’s more recent studio albums, such as 2022’s 'Hexen Valley' – nevertheless, these too are heady fogs to lose yourself in, with on-record personnel starting at different points and meeting on the same wavelength. Its exploratory sense might make seasoned GNOD heads think of 2014 triple LP 'Infinity Machines', or really early oddities like 'The Somnambulist’s Tale' from 2008, but you can also jump in right here if needs be because 'Spot Land' has its own unique vibe. 

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29 May 2024

Video of Ex-Easter Island Head playing live at 'Full of Noises'


Watch this great footage of Ex-Easter Island Head playing live at 'Full of Noises' on 13 October 2023

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Alison Cotton brings 'Engelchen' to London


ALISON COTTON & WAF PRESENT:

'ENGELCHEN'

SAT 22 JUNE (2PM), THE BEDFORD, BALHAM

Tickets/info

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Alison Cotton will present a multimedia production on Saturday 22 June (2pm) in the beautiful music room of The Bedford, Balham as part of Wandsworth Arts Fringe.

The production is inspired by the lives of local residents and opera fans, Ida and Louise Cook, who used their love of music to help 29 Jews escape Nazi Germany.

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“Heartrending storytelling by deeply poetic folk spirit”  Uncut

“Alison Cotton’s moving rendition of the Cook sisters’ story serves as a timely reminder of the radical, even life-saving potential of the profound social bonds forged through a shared love of music.”  The Quietus

“Spellbinding" Shindig!

Alison Cotton has announced details of an event encompassing performance, talk, poetry and music devoted to, and inspired by the lives of Ida and Louise Cook, two sisters who used their love of music to assist 29 Jews to escape Nazi-occupied Germany. The sisters, who were born in Sunderland, lived for 60 years in the Borough of Wandsworth, and the event is presented in association with Wandsworth Arts Fringe.

Engelchen (“Little Angels”) was the term used to address the sisters in letters from people requesting their help. Alison Cotton’s music (from her recently released album Engelchen on Rocket Recordings) portrays their dangerous journeys, the lives of those they saved, those they failed to save, as well as the voices of refugees of today – given the times we live in, this story which highlights the plight of refugees feels particularly relevant and poignant.

Alison Cotton has curated an event that will include a performance of Engelchen (with Chloe Herington). Alongside the performance, refugees (currently living in Wandsworth and members of CARAS - Community Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers), will read letters that they've written to loved ones back home. Professor Angela Smith (University of Sunderland), who has researched Ida and Louise, will give a short talk about the Cook sisters' life and work, and poets Hilaire and Joolz Sparkes will perform a reading of local poet Hilaire's poem 'The Cook Sisters Contemplate a Final Visit to Nazi Germany', a poem from their joint poetry project ‘London Undercurrents’.

The sisters themselves were opera fanatics. Their obsession, which saw them travelling the world to attend performances and meet and befriend their favourite female opera stars, led directly to their rescue work. They held gramophone record listening parties at home when they weren’t travelling, and to bring those parties back to life, audiences arriving and departing the event 22 June will be able to enjoy a gramophone playing the music of Ida and Louise’s favourite opera singers.

There will be also be a display of artefacts relevant to the time from Wandsworth Council’s Heritage Collection, plus photographs and letters from refugees who Ida and Louise saved. Inspired by the sisters’ incredible acts of kindness, there will be stamped envelopes around the venue where the audience will be invited to write a letter or note to themselves or to someone else, with their own promise.

Alison Cotton explains, “I hope to create a moving experience though my event by performing music inspired by the lives of Ida and Louise Cook, a story of such bravery and kindness which is so relevant to the times we live in today. As the event premiered in Sunderland, where they spent their early years, it means a lot to me that this should be followed by a production in the area they lived in for over 60 years of their lives.”

Tickets for the event are available here - Alison Cotton (wandsworthfringe.com)

Alison Cotton’s album inspired by the sisters, Engelchen, is out now via Rocket Recordings. The 7-track album relays the sisters’ story, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Summoning foley work to sum up the atmospheres of their journeys (from train noises to the sound of gulls on the English coast, to the ominous military drumbeat) Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place.

Ida Cook sums up their utilitarian attitudes, which took them not only to Europe but on scarcely conceivable journeys to the US in the 1920s, here; “you never know what you can do until you refuse to take no for an answer. In this very amateur way, we did manage to rescue 29 people and set them on new lives. The same mentality that had made us reckon the expenses of our first American adventure to the final penny now enabled us to think in terms of adding shilling to shilling, week to week and effort to effort"

This is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It’s a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it’s hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen.

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Buy the album 'Engelchen'

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See Alison live: 

22 June London / The Bedford
06 July 
London / The Idler Festival
09 July 
Barrow-in-Furness / Full of Noises, Piel View House
12 July 
Hebden Bridge The Trades Club
27 July 
Fano / Folk Festival (DK)
29 July 
Colchester Arts Centre
14 Nov / Norwich / UEA (w/ GOAT)
15 Nov / Oxford / 02 Academy (w/ GOAT)
16 Nov / Nottingham / Rock City (w/ GOAT)

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24 May 2024

The Janitor's album 'An Error Has Occurred' is released today


"A monstrous wall-of-psychotic sound surrounds your mind and turns it upside down." 
Turn up the volume

"Haunting melodies and heavy rhythms evoke a sense of dystopian rebellion." Psychedelic Baby Magazine

"Steeped in darkness." Backseat Mafia

"This is heavy, fuzzy psych rock that gives you the right chills." Hymn

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Swedish drone-rockers The Janitors  new album 'An Error Has Occurred' is released today on Rocket.

The album is available on a lush Orange/Green Splatter vinyl and housed in an third-eye opening gatefold sleeve that can be bought now in all decent record shops plus via the Bandcamp link below:

Bandcamp


See The Janitors live at these up-and-coming shows, including a special album launch party tonight in Stockholm:

24 May / Stockholm / Geronimos FGT
29 May / Bristol / The Crofters Rights
30 May / Northampton / The Black Prince
01 Jun / London / Peckham Audio 

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For 'An Error Has Occurred' The Janitors rehearsed intensely together before laying down everything live, over two days and nights, in a converted missionary church.  

The resulting songs have the menace of Melvins, the swagger of The Stooges and the cosmic heft of The Heads. Though you will also find dronier numbers, drawn out with soundscapes and textures influenced by The Velvet Underground’s sonic experiments and the equally immersive atmospheres of electronic acts like Massive Attack. 

Watch the videos to the two singles for Anger The World which has received over 60K views and the second single Lies here:

Anger The World

Lies

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22 May 2024

Listen to exclusive 'In Gnod We 'Always' Trust' playlist


To celebrate the imminent release of Gnod's new album 'Spot Land', Rocket have compiled a deep dive playlist into Gnod's eclectic and highly absorbing back catalogue (from what tracks are available on spotify).

'In Gnod We 'Always' Trust' playlist starts with the latest single 'Pilgrim's Progress' and then takes you on a 5 hour, 42  minutes of wonderment:


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'Spot Land' is released on 31 May on ltd edition Purple vinyl and can be preordered exclusively via Bandcamp here:


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See the mighty Gnod live:

27 August / Bristol / The Exchange
28 August / Utrecht / DB's
29 August / Nijmegen / Doornroosje
30 August / Rillaar / Down The Hill
31 August / London / Bush Hall
01 September / Todmorden / The Golden Lion

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