#10 / Alison Cotton – The Portrait You Painted Of Me
#25 / The Utopia Strong – International Treasure
#82 / Gnod – Hexen Valley
See the full rundown of incredible albums, that includes many of our favourite releases of the year so far here:
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“Never fails to surprise, intrigue and uplift.” Fragmented Flaneur
“Atmospheric to the max.” Electronic Sound
"Intertwining bewitching electronics with emotional tumult." Backseat Mafia
"A sonic experience that needs to be heard to be believed." The Sleeping Shaman
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We are over the moon to finally be able to share J. Zunz new album 'Del Aire' that is released today on ltd edition yellow vinyl and via all streaming sites:
In case you were not aware, J. Zunz is the solo project by Mexican artist Lorena Quintanilla from Lorelle meets The Obsolete, Del Aire is Lorena's second album for Rocket, following 2020's album Hisbiscus.
J. Zunz is starting a huge European tour next week and we implore you all to go and see her perform:
29 June / BE / Antwerp / Het Bos
30 June / DE / Mannheim / Der Mannheim Kult
02 July / IT / Padova / Yucca Festival
03 July / IT / Torino / LivingRoom
04 July / FR / Lyon / Le Sonic
05 July / FR / Paris / Supersonic
07 July / UK / Bristol / Rough Trade
08 July / UK / Newcastle / Cobalt Studios
09/10 July / UK / Birmingham / Supersonic Festival
12 July / UK / Birkenhead / Future Yard
13 July / UK / Manchester / The Peer Hat
14 July / UK / London / The Victoria
15 July / UK / Ramsgate / Music Hall
17 July / DE / Bremen / MS Loretta
19 July / CZ / Prague / Underdogs
20 July / CZ / Rožnov pod Radhoštěm / Vratnice
21 July / PL / Warsaw / Chmury
22 July / PL / Bydgoszcz / Mozg
23 July / DE / Dresden / scheune Blechschloss
24 July / SK / Bratislava / Kulturak klub
26 July / HU / Szeged / Jazz Kocsma
27 July / AT / Graz / Cafe’ Wolf
28 July / SI / Ljubljana / Gromka
29 July / AT / Innsbruck / PMK
31 July / BE / Kortrijk / The Pit’s
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Read the reviews here: Fragment Flaneur
All are available from: Bandcamp
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“Unique and powerful and growing in richness and confidence with each new release.” 4.5/5 NARC Magazine
“Alison’s sound is startlingly brilliant.” Shindig!
Alison Cotton's new album 'The Portrait You Painted Of Me' is released today.
Listen here:
The album is released in the on the great Feeding Tube Records in US.
Without trying to always sound like a stuck record, we are sad to announce that the LPs have been delayed due to the ongoing chaos in vinyl manufacturing. We do hope they will only be delayed by a couple of weeks max – and we definitely hope Alison will have copies to sell from her merch table from the start of her summer dates.
Alison has also just announced a string of European dates in October, the full list of shows now reads:
June
25 Coventry ~ Just Dropped In
July
03 Feanedock ~ Timber Festival
06 Leeds ~ Wharf Chambers
07 Glasgow ~ Hug & Pint
08 Preston ~ The New Continental
09 Manchester ~ The Gullivers
10 Sheffield ~ Bishops’ House
15 Bristol ~ The Crofters Rights
16 Chelmsford ~ Hot Box
August
27 London ~ Raw Power Festival
September
07 Berlin ~ Kiezsalon Festival
October
01 Lyon ~ Sonic
02 Geneva ~ Cave 12
04 Milan ~ Teatro Linguaggio
05 Graz ~ Cafe Wolf
06 Prague ~ Punctum
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"Unflinching in their confrontation." The Fat Angel Sings
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Holy Scum, the four piece band featuring Mike Mare (Dälek,) Peter J Taylor (Action Beat), Chris Haslam (GNOD) and Jon Perry (GNOD) have today released their debut album 'Strange Desires'!
We sound like a stuck record, but sadly the LPs have been delayed due to the ongoing chaos in vinyl manufacturing. We do hope they will only be delayed by a couple of weeks at max – we have managed to get copies to the band for their tour that are underway at the moment.
You can still preorder the LP via Bandcamp or from your local record shop:
See Holy Scum supporting Dälek:
10 June / London Electrowerkz
11 June / Birmingham Centrala
12 June / Manchester White Hotel
13 June / Newcastle Cluny
14 June / Bristol The Lanes
16 June / Glasgow Bloc+
We are sad to say that the LPs have been delayed due to the ongoing chaos in vinyl manufacturing. We do hope they will only be delayed by a couple of weeks – and we are trying our utmost to get copies to the band for their dates that start on the 16th June. CDs are available in shops now.
You can still preorder the LP or pick-up a CD via Bandcamp:
Bandcamp
See Utopia Strong at one of these up-and-coming shows:
(Note Birmingham date change)
June 16 / Strange Brew / Bristol
June 17 / The Garage / London (Supporting Magma)
June 18 / The Garage / London (Supporting Magma)
June 19 / Band On The Wall / Manchester (Supporting Magma)
June 24 / Glastonbury Festival (Glade Stage)
June 29 / South Street / Reading
June 30 / Green Door Store / Brighton
July 01 / The Cornish Bank / Falmouth
July 02 / New Lion Brewery / Dartington
July 03 / Junction3 / Cambridge
July 20 / Arts Centre / Colchester
August 18 / Glasgow / Stereo
August 19 / Manchester / Carlton Club
August 25 / Southampton / The Joiners
August 26 / Cardiff / Clwb Ifor Bach
August 26-29 / Krankenhaus Festival / Cumbria
September 23-24 / Carcassonne / Convenanza Festival
October 15 / Hare & Hounds / Birmingham
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Cotton’s album renders traditional music in uncanny colours with influences from her native north-east England.
Alison Cotton has long wuthered on the wilder fringes of folk music. She played the viola in folk-rock revivalists the Eighteenth Day of May (signed to Joe Boyd’s Hannibal label) and still performs in the Left Outsides, her duo with husband Mark Nicholas, casting traditional music’s spirits and sounds in uncanny colours. Her recent solo work has been even more eerie and filmic, a mood her latest album sustains, tightly lacing her voice and harmonium around influences from her native north-east England.
The album begins with an incantation in miniature: Murmurations Over the Moor. For 77 seconds, Cotton’s vocals are layered in unison, harmoniously, then discordantly, twisting and dissembling folk scales. The Last Wooden Ship, a long piece inspired by the lost shipyards of Sunderland, follows; later, 17th November 1962 recalls a forgotten fishing-boat disaster. In both, harmonium drones suggest dying foghorns, Cotton’s voice morphing into a solemn siren of the sea.
That Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending, inspired by old mining cultures, twists the metallic sound of viola strings into industrial echoes, then Violet May arrives like a lost Roud ballad, full of stark, slight lyrics about departing mothers and longed-for reunions that never come. It holds a deep sense of long-suffered, almost resilient loneliness.
Cotton claims Nico as an influence – and the icy textures of The Marble Index certainly lurk around her work – but strong, too, is her connection with the work of American musician Dorothy Carter, founder of the Mediaeval Baebes, whose work meshed medieval, traditional and experimental textures. Cotton may expand folk’s raw emotions into more avant garde territories, but they still feel possessed by a blood-red muscle memory that goes back centuries.
See the piece here: The Guardian
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"High quality ‘pop’ is hard to find... a delight to hear it achieved so convincingly here." The Sleeping Shaman
"Gooey psychedelia and deranged sci-fi pop that has echoes of the Kinks on the shrooms." Sun 13
"A sonic journey filled with this raw and vivid aggression." Circuit Sweet
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Today sees the release of Rubber Oh's debut album 'Strange Craft'.
You can buy the album via the Rocket bandcamp or from your favourite record shop – Rough Trade also have an exclusive Pink And Grey Splatter vinyl for sale:
See Rubber Oh live tonight and tomorrow:
June 03 / London/ The Lexington
June 04 / Newcastle/ The Cluny 2
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Rubber Oh’s debut album ‘Strange Craft’, is a deliriously tuneful sci-fi tinged psych-pop. Mapping out a retro-futuristic trajectory that stretches from the wide-eyed travails of the late-’60s through to the hard-edged mind expansions of the 21st century, this collection of warped interstellar voyages is intent on taking the scenic route across the cosmic continuum.
The album took shape initially in snatched hours around Sam Grant from Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs regular job as studio engineer at Newcastle’s Blank Studios. While Sam performed the majority of the music, he had some help from friends and acquaintances including Beth Jeans Houghton [Du Blonde] as well as a couple of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs members.
The incredible cover art for Strange Craft was created by the very talented 3D artist Santi Zoraidez.
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The Utopia Strong – Castalia
(A massive euphoric banger!)
The Utopia Strong
J. Zunz – Outsides
(Immersive ambience and a cacophony of repetitious guitar fuzz – great new track from J.Zunz)
J. Zunz
Holy Scum – A World About To Die
(Second reason why you need this fog of momentous noise in your record collections)
Holy Scum
Petbrick – Ayan
(Mighty and unique tribal techno sounds + remixes from Surgeon and Cardopusher)
Petbrick
Oneida – I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand
(The big O are back!!!)
Oneida
Kikagaku Moyo – Kumoyo Island
(Great last album by this incredibly talented bunch)
Kikagaku Moyo
Cassels – Your Humble Narrator
(Great slice of repetition!)
Cassels
Elena Colombi b2b Phuong Dan – Transmission to Tisno
(Two of our fave DJs go back to back for Crack Mag)
Elena Colombi b2b Phuong Dan
Hakki Bulut – Ben koyluyum
(Turkish psych sounds)
Hakki Bulut
Michel Moulinié - L'écho de l'acier
(Cosmique repetitions from '78)
Michel Moulinié
Cheri Knight – Prime Numbers
(Nice repetitions – via Jenifer Lucy Allen column in the Quietus)
Cheri Knight
Spacecraft – Paradoxe
(Interstellar cosmique sounds)
Spacecraft
Bo Hansson – De svarta ryttarna
(Classic Swedish psych)
Bo Hansson
Pharaoh Overlord – Slow City
(Repetitions from 2000)
Pharaoh Overlord
Vox Populi! – Caballo Blanco
(From a great collection of unreleased Vox Populi! Tracks)
Vox Populi!
Various – Deep Cuts
(Comp of experimental, electronic sounds from India)
Deep Cuts
Faust – Morning Land
(Slightly different version of the killer track from Munich Everywhere/71 miuntes – from the Punkt album)
Faust
Studio Master – Car Boot Sex Tape
(Great bit of funky-psych library Music unearthed by Johnny Trunk)
Studio Master
Księżyc – Rabbit Eclipse
(Great recommendation from Paddy Shine)
Księżyc
Quiet Road – Rest Comfortably
(Glam stomp rock)
Quiet Road
Chew – Holy Fountain
(New on Stolen Body)
Chew
James Brown – Super Bad Pts. 1, 2 & 3
(Essential groove)
James Brown
Ayal Senior – Az Yashir
(Acoustic, electronic and fuzzed mantras)
Ayal Senior
Mijal & White – I've Been You
(Garage pop)
Mijal & White
Ecstatic Vision – Times Up
(Stoogewind)
Ecstatic Vision
Basil Kirchin – Silicon Chip
(More great music unearthed by Jonny Trunk – check the whole comp)
Basil Kirchin
Laddie Bolocko – 97-99 / Live & Unreleased 1997-2000
(Like many of you we expect – been lapping up these two collections of avant rock sounds)
Laddie Bolocko
Vangelis – The Dragon
(Rest In Power)
Vangelis
Listen to and follow our updated monthly Rocket Probes Spotify playlist: