They Say: 10 bands you need to check out at Supersonic Festival 2018 Supersonic Festival co-founder Lisa Meyer talks us through the acts you simply can't afford to miss this year
Originally starting out life as a one-day festival in Birmingham in 2003, Supersonic Festival has grown into one of the world's most important events for new and exciting music. Cherry-picking the finest in experimental music from all over the globe, the festival's line-up grows increasingly diverse with each passing year.
But with so much on offer, it can be a struggle to work out what the festival's must-see bands might be. So, we turned to Supersonic co-founder Lisa Meyer for her guide to the festival's most essential viewing. Here, she guides you through Supersonic's ultimate must-sees: Gnod "Literally the best album title ever which came out on great UK label Rocket Recordings: JUST SAY NO TO THE PSYCHO RIGHT-WING CAPITALIST FASCIST INDUSTRIAL DEATH MACHINE. Their music is reflective of the world we’re living in right now and their driving rhythms bring an audience together into one heaving mass, absolutely brilliant live band." Read the full piece here: Louder Sound ---
It says: Thuban is Lay Llamas 5th album and their second for Rocket Recordings, after 2014’s Østrø. Thuban (the Arabic for ‘snake’) is named after the star closest to the North pole from the fourth to the second millennium BC, just so you know!
The album begins with Eye-Chest People’s Dance Ritual with a loose drum-driven track, overlayed by a lush, spacy vocals driving the melody and an african style guitar break in the centre. There’s someting of the way Karl Hyde (Underworld) treats his vocals that makes me think a Lay Llamas/Underworld collaboration would yield some interesting results. Holy Worms came out a a single in April this year and has a killer afrobeat rhythm, with retro synths and a phat funky jazz bass. Silver Sun was another single that made it onto the album. It starts like a satellite breaking up on re-entry, and then morphs into a heavy pounding bass/drums combo with a crazy sax solo over the top... Read the rest here: Echoes and Dust ---
Today sees the release of the new Lay Llamas album 'Thuban' in all good record shops. The album features contributions from GOAT, The Pop Group's Mark Stewart and Clinic. The 8 track album album is the brainchild of Nicola Giunta, and involved as many of twelve different musicians yet with Nicola writing lyrics, singing, producing, mixing and recording at his home, whilst utilising new instruments from marimba to sax to kalimba to pilot this craft to dimensions unknown. The result has been a step beyond the kraut-damaged psychedelic mantras of 'Østro' into a realm seemingly without boundaries, one in which a pan-global fascination with rhythmic hypnosis and an unquenchable experimental zeal manifests hermetically-aligned revelations aplenty. Buy from here: Bandcamp or stream here Spotify Apple Music - Some great reviews have been coming in for the album: "an album that already promises to be among the best in 2018.” Rolling Stone "an album that is once again a journey, literally out of time.” 5/5 - Il Mucchio Selvaggio "the new masters of the Made in Italy psychedelia.” Album of the Month - Rockerilla "a timeless cosmic rock album.” 85/100Rumore "...with Mark Stewart, Clinic and Goat, Thuban is the invocation ritual of a new digital tribality." Linus Magazine "with no doubt a great record." Buscadero "a determination to push boundaries." Soundblab "mesmerises you with its sincere eclecticism and wide sphere of influence." Psych Insight "a marvellous album." 4/5 – Primal Music "undoubtedly one of the albums of the year." Dayz of Purple and Orange
It says: It’s been four years since the release of Italian-based sonic manipulators ‘Lay Llamas’ sublime debut album ‘Østro’ on Rocket Recordings and since then their sonic manifestations have gone from strength to strength. Since the departure of Gioele Valenti (now with his own band – JUJU) ‘Lay Llamas’ have come solely under the command of Nicola Giunta who has reimagined their collective sound into something otherworldly, melding the rhythmic side of krautrock with afrobeat, neo-psych, electronica, spoken-word and experimental atmospherics. Having put out a number of smaller releases on labels such as Backwards, 4 Zero and ArteTetra, ‘Lay Llamas’ under Giunta’s guidance have played on the live circuit with some heavy hitters from the modern psych scene such as the infamous ‘Goat’ at London’s Roundhouse and effortlessly managing a sonic demolition job of some considerable force at Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia. Now they have returned to Rocket Recordings to unleash the latest chapter in this fascinating story. Their latest long player entitled ‘Thuban’ is an eight track sonic rollercoaster of unparalleled psychic abandonment featuring contributions from members of ‘Clinic’ and ‘Goat’ along with spoken-word contributions from Mark Stewart of ‘The Pop Group’ fame. ‘Thuban’ gets it’s official release on the 15th June 2018 and is available to pre-order right now on various formats via rocketrecordings.bandcamp.com Melodic wind strewn instrumentation buffers and whirrs as the opening salvos of ‘Eye-Chest People’s Dance Ritual’ arrive pulling twinkling frequencies with it as swells of synth rise from deep below the mix. Metronomic drum patterns dance repetitively alongside the throb of melodic bass and sequenced electronics as those hazy vocalisations meander into audible range attached to woozy instrumentation and the pull of guitars. Instrumentally sublime, this opening track is deeply captivating and filled with sonic brilliance... Read the full review here: Primal ---
Razur Cuts interviewed Rocket's Chris Reeder about the labels 20th Anniversary and the magazine has just been released. You can buy a copy thru PayPal, just send £4.50 (includes postage )to email address; deeko1963@googlemail.com Follow Razur Cuts on Twitter at: @razurcutsmag ---
On the night of January 27th 2018 Julie’s Haircut performed live at the legendary Teatro Regio in Parma (Italy). Only 100 members of the audience were allowed in to sit on the stage of the theatre with the band playing against the breathtaking background of the stalls and gallery. Watch a simply mind bending rendition of lave favourite Purple Jewel ---
They say: So……….where do I start. Well let me just say that I believe this to be the best song I’ve heard since Arctic Monkeys released R U Mine? early in 2012. To put this into context, when that track was released I DJed in a converted toilet (Ginglik, Shepherds Bush) at The Rifles aftershow party and that night I played R U Mine? 5 times in total! I’m DJing at Club 85 in a few weeks and this will certainly be on the playlist, and every single DJ playlist until I hang up the headphones. The other guys at Transmission HQ will tell you that I make sweeping statements all of the time, but this time its for real!, This is the best song in the last 6 years. Let me explain why as I obviously listen to the track whilst writing this. Now I know absolutely noting about the band Goat but after a quick bit of research I find out they are a mask wearing, experimental, psychedelic rock band from Gothenburg in Sweden who’s back story claims they are just one of many incarnations over the last 30 years of a group from a small, voodoo-worshipping northern town named Korpilombolo. Now as interesting as this is, it doesn’t tell you quite how I feel about this track. And boy does it make me feel something. I feel like the coolest mother fucker to ever grace the planet when I hear it. Not many songs in the last 5 years or so make me feel anything...
