Rocket Probes March 2012 Playlist

Light Drive from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.

Goat - World Music

(The band have delivered us an amazing album...killer in your face 'Heads' like fuzz, stonking afro groove outs and a kind of post-punk pop sensibility, we're pretty excited!)

Bad Brains - Attitude ROIR Sessions

(An ol' fave getting alot of spins this month...fuzzy thrash punk collides with dubbed out reggae, full of PMA)

Fire - Flames

(Amazing grooved out psych rock track from 70's Yugoslavia. The amazing fuzz riff is on a par with anything by Dark and George Brigman and split...nice to finally find this on vinyl)

Cruise - Were on Heaven

(Nice repetitive kosmiche rave on NNF)

Coloured Balls - God

(Great riff'tastic 70's australian jam rock from their perfectly titled album Summer jam)

Prins Thomas - Prins Thomas

(Krauty dance music...fuzz guitars and fuzz bass, 808 and kosmiche soundscapes all glide over the repetitive beats)

Kuruuwcrew - Battle Disco

(Frantic motorik driven noise rock...ala Oneida, Cave and Uran)

Yabby You - Jesus Dread

(Bonus disc of dubs, still one of Rocket's favourties)

Blues Control - Local Flavor

(Sun Araw meets Eno)

They Came From The Stars - Beer of the Gods

(Electronic, Poto-Prog, Noise, everything comes out in this 10")

Catherine Christer Hennix - The Electric Harpsichord

(25 minutes of Terry Riley like raga drone)

Heldon - Live 1975 - 79

(Lo-fi French Electronic Rock)

Tetras - Pareidolia

(Electronic noise Jazz with touches of This Heat & The Necks)

Animus - Hallucinations: Ideals Surrounding Water, Sand, and Clouds of Dust

(Mesmerizing and hypnotic black metal)

Acre - Sacrifice
(Pulsating cinematic Kosmische drift)

Karuna Khyal - Alomoni 1985

(CAN jamming with a Japanese Beefheart)

Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden

(This is where it all started!)

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Ultra ltd. Goat Cassette on its way

Goat are bringing unleashing some more 'swedish voodoo psych' out into the world.

This time as an ultra ltd to 100 copies cassette for a cool Swedish label 'Ljud Kassett'.

We don't know the full details year, but we know it is a nice little taster for the album that is coming out on Rocket in September.

For up to date information, visit the bands blog and watch this space.

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Behind the Hill documentary

Check out this cool little documentary about the New England DIY scene featuring, Sunburned and MV&EE and all...

You can watch it here

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Review of Teeth of the Sea and Big Naturals (Anthroprophh) live at The Croft

Here is a nice review of Teeth of the Sea / Big Naturals (In fact Anthroprophh) at the Croft on March 22nd:

You can see the full review here


Think this was possibly gig of the year so far. Yep, that good. I’d been steeling myself for my second psychedelic drooooooning band of the week but found them to be nowhere near as psychedelic as I’d been expecting. Maybe that was because I’d seen White Hills two days previously who were very much the essence of all things psychedelic (in a musical form). So, to conclude before I’ve even really begun the review, it may not have been the best night of psychedelic music I’d witnessed during the week but It was deffo one of the best nights of swirling, building, crashing, driving, wall of sound type noises I’ve seen / heard for some time.

Having concluding before I’ve begun I think I’ll proceed by reviewing the gig back to frontish, headlining band first style.

So there we go, another great cacophonous noise band that I’ve wanted to see for a while & that I can now tick off the ‘list’ as having been seen. I like that this type music is becoming quite popular again (albeit in a minority way and assuming for the length of this review that you can be ‘popular in a minority way’), and I also like that people are referring to it as ‘experimental post rock’ now rather than ‘prog rock’. (Before anyone jumps in & cries something to the effect that how you’re tagged shouldn’t really matter, I agree, in essence, but in reality it kind of does really doesn’t it? It’d make a nonsense of Last.fm’s “stuff we think you’d like” algorithm’s otherwise & I kind of rely on them on occasions when I’m looking for lazily found ‘new soundz’).

Of course, music like this isn’t ever gonna be everyone’s cup of tea (or indeed the majorities cup of tea) but the people who do dig this kind of racket will definitely have Teeth Of The Sea marked down as one of the better proponents of the sound. Four ridiculously talented guys, they’ve now been together as a band long enough so they can kick shit out of their individual pieces of equipment, seemingly totally at random, yet also in perfect harmony with each other.

Proving how talented they are there was a lot of instrument switching going on. There was also the occasional appearance of a trumpet which added a slightly mournful* note to proceedings, although having said that overall the main feeling i was aware of, from quite early on in proceedings, was euphoria & I gave up trying to suppress the grin that kept on appearing on my face early on. (I should maybe point out I wasn’t trying to suppress the grin coz I didn’t want to look like I was enjoying myself, more coz I look a bit simple when I grin). *(With apols to trumpet fans who hate their instrument being stereotyped as ‘mournful’ - I know it isn’t always the case).

I try not to moan on here if I can avoid it but I do always find it a bit sad when a band don’t give us an encore, especially when I enjoy the band as much as this & especially when they finish well short of closing time. Ditto the Ceremony gig from the night before. There should be some rule about this, they played for long enough so there wasn’t a sense of feeling short changed at all, it’s just that having your encore hopes dashed always kind of hurts a bit. One of the most depressing things in life is that ‘soft lights going on, tinny music beginning’ moment at show’s. My problem anyway I guess, I should probably buck up & get real. Or something.

Supporting TOTS were long time South West favourites, the band Big Naturals. They weren’t supposed to be playing according to the Croft’s website so it was a hugely pleasant surprise to arrive & see them (replete with banana’s) setting up in the back room.

Big Naturals are a classic example of a band doing it for the love of the music. There’s no way they’re ever gonna make money doing this. “I’m only being paid £6 for this” one of the band members said when a member of the audience asked them something. It’s a shame though, they deserve if not to be massively famous at least to have a massive core fanbase. Ok, maybe not massive but at least big enough to fill up The Croft’s back room anyway. And that’s expecting less than it sounds because Big Naturals spurn the stage & set up shop right slap bang in the middle of the floor. Yep, where the audience are meant to be. It’s a brilliant ploy & one I’m surprised more bands don’t copy. It brings an intimacy & closeness to the bands crashing tumultuous sound that can’t be beaten. I imagine it could be quite scary to the uninitiated, or even just to those whose ears aren’t already shot to shit through a steady diet of at a least a couple of gigs a week, usually gig’s of a noisy bent. Selfishly, in a way I hope they never do become more popular coz that’d put an end to their setting up in the middle of the venue’s floor.

The fact that Big Naturals have been ‘noise jamming’ together for so long shows as they syncopate their individual cacophonies into one beautiful whole (bollocks, did I just say “syncopate their individual cacophonies into one beautiful whole”? think I need to go for a lie down), something they share with Teeth Of The Sea, for whom they made the perfect support. When I say ‘beautiful’ I should probably qualify that by explaining that I find the sound of huge walloping drums & the nonstop use of distortion pedals, feedback loops, effects boxes & oscillatory things beautiful.

Taking the experimental to the extreme the vocalist shouted some of his vocals through a mouthful of half eaten apple, a new one to me. (I’m presuming this was to achieve a certain sound rather than because he’d mistimed taking a bite out of his apple - fortunately you’ll probably never know if I’ve just made a tit of myself or not). Big Naturals vacillate between performing as a two & as a three piece. They are equally as good both ways. I so wish bands like this could get the recognition they deserve.

Having said that I wish more people were into them they don’t exactly make it easy for fans of their sound. Finding Big Naturals stuff online aint easy. Googling their name without the proviso ‘band’ afterwards brings up lots of pictures of breasts, most of which I suspect aren’t really natural at all (although I can’t deny that they’re invariably ‘big’) (not that I spent much time looking at them of course).

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Teeth of the Sea pics from Lexington show

You can see some great pics of Teeth of the Sea from their recent show at the Lexington with Pontiak here

The band are now locking themselves into the studio to write and record their follow up to Your Mercury.

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An interview with Goat

GOAT were recently interviewed by a Swedish magazine about their recent Rocket 7" 'Goatman' and their up and coming killer of an album

You can see the interview here

Or here is a 'very roughly' translated version:

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How would you best describe your music?

Spiritualistic World Music

Totally unknown in Gothenburg but awesome response outside of Sweden, are you surprised by the response?

We made music without any goals or preconceptions. Simply out of a spiritual need. Suddenly we are releasing records and have requests from around the world basically without us lifting a finger, so yes we are surprised of the fact that there seems to be such a need for what we do among people. It´s very humbling/ fun but not without problems. But we like very much what we do so in that sense we are not so surprised that others like it as well.

So, Gothenburg, what do you say about the local music scene? What do you add?

Gothenburg is a pretty relaxed town to operate from in the creative sense. People do what they want here to quite a high extent. But I could not tell you what we add to the scene. We do not think in that way. I think many others add more to the scene than we do.

Goat are from the little village of Korpolombolo?

Immigrants without a residence permit.

Many rumors circulate around Goat. Why so secretive?

We don´t have any need to connect our faces/ persons to our music. We think it sounds better without that connection. There are also other reasons that have to do with our heritage in the village of Korpolombolo and the religious situation there.

More secrets. There is talk about live shows, when do we get to see you in Gothenburg? And what can we expect from a Goat show?

Since we are on an English label they have kind of persuaded us to do a tour over there. If we will play Sweden in relation to that tour is not decided. Or if we´ll ever play live again after that tour. We´ve never played live so we don´t know what to expect from it our selves. But we will never appear on stage without our masks, that is essential for the music and our heritage.

Really excited about a full album, will there be one and how will it sound?

There will be an album out on Rocket Recordings this summer. It´s already done but I don´t know how to describe it to you. Rocket and others that have heard it are really enthusiastic. But I think you will have to listen to it yourself when it comes out. It could be fun to get it released in Sweden to spread the music around here as well. I kind of suspect that it would appeal appeal to people here, it is appealing to us anyway..

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The Goat album will be released on Rocket in September, and the band hope to tour the UK around October, so what this space.

Apparently there are a handful of Goatman 7" left at our distro company Cargo, but these are selling fast, so if you want one, get one soon as they are not going to be around for much longer.

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New Optical Sounds magazine

Our favourite magazine Optical Sounds has a new issue out.

As always it is packed with interviews, features, reviews of all the latest underground psych bands and retrospectives on some of the great bands of yesteryear...the mighty Spacemen 3 adorn this months cover

It includes a nice little review of our mighty Goat 7" too..

You can buy a copy here

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Teeth of the Sea and Anthroprophh live in Bristol

Just a reminder that Teeth of the Sea are playing the Croft in Bristol this Thursday with the mighty Anthroprophh in support. This line up of Anthroprophh will see Paul Allen (The Heads) backed up by Gareth and Jess from the Big Naturals.

And to top all that Johnny O' will be dusting of his lamps and projectors and be in charge of mind blowing visuals!!

Gonna be a special one.

Teeth of the Sea

Anthroprophh

The Croft, Bristol

Thursday 22nd March

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Gnod announce London show

That is right, Gnod are stopping off in London after their European tour to play a rare London show:

Gnod

Power Lunches, Dalston

Monday 30th April

More details to follow when we receive them.

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Gnod European tour and gnew INGNODWETRUST tshirts

As reported before the mighty Gnod are heading off on a European tour, the full dates are:

8th April - Looking for show (UK / North France)
9th April - Looking for show (North France)
10th April - Eurofoot Cafe, Metz
11th April - Carlo Levi, Liege
12th April - DNA, Brussels
13th April - Roadburn Festival, Tilburg
14th April - Hühnermanhattan, Halle
15th April - Armaberokay, Kassell
16th April - Stubnitz, Bremen
17th April - Cafe Glocksee, Hannover
18th April - Krabbesholm, Skive
19th April - TBC, Odense / Nyborg
20th April - Salon Pissoir, Copenhagen
21st April - Schokoladen, Berlin
22nd April - hinZundkunZ, Leipzig
23rd April - Azyl, Liberec
24th April - Klub007, Prague
25th April - TBC, Hamburg
26th April - Looking for show (Central / South Germany)
27th April - MUZ-Club, Nurnberg
28th April - TBC, Cologne
29th April - Looking for show (Belgium / France / Holland) 30th

On this tour they are gonna be selling some amazing INGNODEWETRUST T-shirt, see them here

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Nothing is... gonna be good this week

Rocket is joining the Nothing is... crew again this week at The Alibi in Dalston, London.

And as Mission Control has just come into possession of the up and coming Goat album, we are going to start the evening by playing the whole album, as we want to hear it nice and loud.

So if you want to hear the album that has got us VERY EXCITED indeed and several months before it is going to hit the shops, make sure you are in by 8:45pm as the playback starts dead on...

Also we got something special playing as visuals in the front bar...

And it is free to get in, what more you want.

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GNOD Chaudelande Volume 2 - Available

Here's a reminder to all you GNOD Heads out-there, Chaudelande Volume 2 is now

available. The album is the second part of the recordings we did at Studio Chaudelande in France last April and features three mindstomping tracks: Man On The Wire, Entrance & Genocider.

Order via the label: tamedrecords.com

Watch this space for more info on the up & coming ROCKET CD and DOWNLOAD versions of Volume 1 & 2.

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Live footage of Gnod in Edinburgh

Here is some recent footage of Gnod with their new live line-up playing at a recent show in Edinburgh

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