Rocket Probes March Playlist

Lay Llamas – Future Desert Days
(Great new track of krauted out Spacemen 3 pop by Lay Llamas that will feature on a ltd tape comp of italian psych bands that are playing the up-and-coming Thalassa Festival)
Thalassa Festival

Holy Wave – Relax
(Goat's US touring partners return with their second album of great Velvets/Byrds/Elevators/Beatles/Spacemen 3 pop!!!)
Holy Wave

Montibus Communitas – Harvest Times
(Nice Far East Family Band sounding commune psych)
Montibus Communitas

Mark Wagner  – Mental Transmutation
(Nice tape on Zam Zam...Sunday Mourning/**K's Mark Wagner creates mediative sounds that are somewhere in between Gnod and 80's John Carpenter)
Mark Wagner

The Diaphanoids – LSME
(Nice track of repetitive beats and fuzzy electronics/guitar drones)
The Diaphanoids

Graham Central Station – Tell Me What It Is
(Great repetitive, machine-funk groove)
Graham Central Station

Suprise Party – Cut Me
(Nice bit of psych pop)
Suprise

Sundaze – Ok/Then
(Fuzzy suicide)
Sundaze

Stanford Clarke – The Fool
(Country Fuzz!!!!)
Stanford Clarke

Inutili – Fry Your Brain
(Lo-fi, repetitive, noise groove)
Inutili

Metzengerstein – Her Golden Juice
(Primitive hypnotic noise)
Metzengerstein

Sleaford Mods – Austerity Dogs
(Fat Paul recommended this to us…imagine The Fall and The Country Teasers meets John Cooper Clark meets Frank Sidebottom…or something like that anyway)
Sleaford Mods

Joakim Skogsberg – Offer Rota
(Repetitive rhythms and fuzzed cello, reminds of fellow Swedes International Harvester)
Joakim Skogsberg

Signal – Robotron
(Minimal hypnotic electronica)
Signal

Crosby Stills and Nash – CS&N
(1960's explorations into three part harmonies)
Crosby Stills and Nash

Jan Dukes De Grey – Mice and Rats in the Loft
(Acid folk fuzz way)
Jan Dukes De Grey

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Shit and Shine / Gnod play Manchester

The Beauty Witch presents

Shit and Shine 
Gnod
Ill

The Roadhouse 
Manchester 
Sunday 3rd August

Tickets £7 adv

More information: The Beauty Witch

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Rocket interview in latest issue of Shindig

John and Chris from Rocket have been interviewed by Shindig magazine about the last 15 years of Rocket.

The interview is presented as a double page feature in the latest issue of the magazine.

The issue also features information about the up and coming psych festivals in Eindhoven and Liverpool which Rocket are involved in. 

Keep your eye out for some very exciting Rocket / Shindig news in the coming months.

For further information visit: Shindig

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Listen to the Thalassa Festival mix featuring exclusive Lay Llamas track

Noisey have put together a mix featuring the bands that are appearing at the forthcoming Thalassa Festival which we first mentioned here: Thalassa Festival

The Festival is a showcase of the cream of Italian psych bands

The mix kicks off with a brand new 'non album' track by Lay Llamas entitled 'Future Desert Days'. The mix also contains exclusive tracks by another Rocket fave, Mamouthones

Listen to this exclusive mix here at Noisey's website: Noisey

Lay Llamas album called Ostro is out on May 25th and for more info on that see this previous post: OSTRO

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Patatap

Been playing around with this for the last hour…thought we had to share it!!!

http://www.patatap.com

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Listen to the track WE ARE YOU by LAY LLAMAS

Here is WE ARE YOU, the first track from the album OSTRO, the debut album by LAY LLAMAS.

For more information about this album, see the previous post

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Introducing OSTRO, the debut album by LAY LLAMAS

Lay Llamas – Ostro
(Launch065)

Ltd LP / CD / DL
Released 26 May 2014

Ostro is the debut album by Italian band Lay Llamas. The band formed in 2011 and since this inception have released two sold out cassettes and contributed a track to Rocket Recordings 15th Anniversary compilation called ‘Crystallized’.

Lay Llamas could well be the perfect archetypal Rocket band, as the combined sounds of fellow label mates Gnod, Goat, Teeth of the Sea and Hills can be heard within their spacious, repetitive grooves. Though what Lay Llamas do with these familiar Rocket sounds is something uniquely their own.

From the spacey afro groove of the opening track ‘Ancient People of the Stars’ to the post punk repetition of ‘Archaic Revival’. The motorik interlude that is ‘Overmind’ and the Spacemen 3’esque drone of ‘Voices Call’. The addictive, looping kraut pop of ‘We are you’ and the dubbed out expanses of 'Something Wrong' and 'In Search of Plants' which both recall the sounds of Peaking Lights, Massive Attack and Yeasayer. All this is what makes Ostro a truly unique album, an album that takes several immersed listens to fully digest all its colours and beauty.

The album was mastered by the genius that is James Plotkin.

Lay Llamas are going to be hitting European stages throughout 2014, starting with a performance on the 'Counterblast Experiment' stage at the Eindhoven Psych Lab in June as well as touring the UK and Europe in September where they will be playing the Liverpool Psych Festival alongside the rest of the Rocket Recordings roster on the ‘Transmissions Fom the Outer Realms’ stage.

Tracklist:
01 Ancient people of the stars
02 We are you
03 The Lay Llamas
04 Desert of lost souls
05 Overmind
06 Archaic revival
07 Something wrong
08 In search of plants
09 Voices call

Listen to an exclusive stream of the track 'We are You' over at The Quietus

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Gnod to play Golden Cabinet show in Shipley

Gnod are playing a Golden Cabinet show in Shiply.
Support comes from the great Henry Blacker and Sunwolf

Gnod
Sunwolf
Henry Blacker
-
5 April
Golden Cabinet
Shipley

For more info and tickets, go here: Golden Cabinet

And see what The Quietus says about the night: The Quietus

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More bands added to Liverpool Psych Fest line-up

Liverpool Psych Fest have added more bands to their already strong line up that includes a Rocket Curated stage called Transmissions from the Outer Realms, that features, Goat, Teeth of the Sea, Gnod, Hills, Anthroprophh and Lay Llamas.

With the addition of Rocket friends Thoughts Forms, Theo Verney and Holy Wave plus old Rocket band White Hills it is looking like it is going to be a weekend to remember.

Nothing is… will also be present spinning some psyched out madness on the Rocket stage.

Get your tickets here: Liverpool Psych Fest

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Goat sign to Sub Pop for North America

Goat have signed to Sub Pop as their North American Label after they released Goat's Stonegoat/Dreambuilding 7".

Sub Pop will be releasing the new Goat album exclusively in America and Canada. 

As with World Music, Stranded will be releasing the new album in Scandinavia. And we at Rocket are still responsible for releasing it in UK, Europe and throughout the rest of the world.

Details about Goat's next album will be released within the next few months....but let's just say, we are very excited!!!

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Goat to play Bad Bonn Kilbi Festival in Switzerland

Goat have been confirmed to play Bad Bonn Kilbi Festival in Switzerland on May 30th.

Info and tickets can be found here: Bad Bonn Kilbi

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Chrome to play first ever London show

We have just heard that Baba Yaga Hut are bringing the mighty and legendary CHROME to London for the first ever live appearance. 

The show will be at The Electrowerkz on Saturday 21st June.

Tickets for this inevitable sell-out show can be bought from here: Baba Yaga Hut





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Nothing is getting out alive

'Nothing is…'. returns this Friday but without Rocket's Rik Motor.
The other usual suspects will still be present bringing their mix of kraut, psych, cosmic disco, biker funk, spacey techno and all other strange sounds in-between.

Nothing is...
Cage & Aviary (Emotional Especial/DFA)
Cherrystones (Brutal)
Little Dirty (Hed Nod)

The Alibi – Dalston/London
21 March
9-3
Free entry

Please show your love for us here: Nothing is…

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Teeth of the Sea and The Cosmic Dead to play Corsica Studios in July

That is right, Baba Yaga Hut has brought together two of the UK's best psych travellers to share the same stageon 13 July at Corsica Studios in Elephant and Castle in London.

More info and tickets to what will be a sold-out-show can be found here: BabYaga Hut

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The Quietus interview Rocket about 15 years of psychedelia

In conjunction with Eindhoven Psych Lab, The Quietus interviewed us about how Psychedelia has changed in the 15 years we have been around.

Plus we have put together a 'song a year' playlist soundtracking the 15 years we have been around (accruing to spotify):

Rocket Recordings Interview
Christopher Torpey , March 12th, 2014 10:25

With the Eindhoven Psych Lab on the horizon, Christopher Torpey talks to the Bristol/London label's Chris Reeder and John O'Carroll about the changing face of psychedelic music

A generation is a long time in music, a timeframe that spans a lot of growing up, moving on, taking time out to spend more time with the kids, reconnecting with your art. Over the course of 15 to 20 years a band may run the gamut of growing pains as they traverse adolescence, unless they're a stubborn child who prefers to stick resolutely to their guns, even if the furrow they're ploughing is a relatively lonely one.

For record labels, a generation is positively a lifetime, spent traversing the high seas of fads, and negotiating the swell's trends – both in buying and listening. In the case of Bristol/London-based Rocket Recordings, their existence has spanned a period of particular fertility in all things 'psych', with the label championing artists at the forefront of challenging psychedelic music's traditional boundaries. From the baby steps of initial 7" releases by The Heads, Lilydamwhite and Sawdust Caesars, to the tremor-inducing adult stomps of Goat's World Music LP, the men at the helm of the Rocket mothership have helped to add industrial drone and voodoo space rock to the ever-growing pantheon of what constitutes the mind-bending end of the musical spectrum.

The journey is one felt most keenly by those people at the helm. "We never saw the label as being anything more than a 7" label," explains Rocket founder Chris Reeder. "But it is hard to survive as a label solely releasing 7"s, as even back then there weren't many places that reviewed them or gave them exposure: John Peel playing a release was the sign of success and not how many we had sold!"...

Read the full piece and see the playlist here: The Quietus

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Exclusive Rocket Recordings showcase in Brussels

We are excited to announce that the day after our 'Counterblast Experiment' stage at Eindhoven Psych Lab,  four of our Rocket band will be playing together again at an exclusive label showcase at 'Magasin 4' in Brussels:

The full details are:

Rocket Recordings Showcase
Saturday 07.06.2014
Magasin 4 / Brussels
–
GNOD
TEETH OF THE SEA
ANTHROPROPHH
LAY LLAMAS
–

GNOD
Rhythm, drone & psychedelic noise collective formed in November 2006, Manchester, UK.
The line-up shrinks and swells as the music rotates & expands to reach new frontiers and quite possibly other worlds.

As a band they’re always creating, hours and hours of jams of which they occasionally see fit to release to the wider world. I say occasionally; since their formation in 2007 they’ve had at least twelve full-length releases and claim to have had many more. These appear out of nowhere though, ...

TEETH OF THE SEA
From the radiant consciousness of Britain’s most intrepid sonic assassins comes a shattered mirrorball of a record fit to transform and transfix all that surrounds it in 2013 and beyond. MASTER, the long-awaited and devastating third album of Teeth Of The Sea, is an unprecedented junket into mind-melting abstraction and neon-drenched revelation.

Nearly three years have passed since the band released ‘Your Mercury’, their transcendent second album, and the four-piece have kept very busy during ...

ANTHROPROPHH
Paul Allen from the Heads and Gareth Turner and Jesse Webb from the Big Naturals play heavy psych experimental rock.

LAY LLAMAS
Lay Llamas is an afro/kraut/psych project formed by Nicola Giunta (backing vocals, bass, synth, organs, drums, guitars, drum machine, percussions, tapes, Casio SA5, ukulele, vocoder), and Gioele Valenti (lyrics, lead and backing vocals, guitars, synth, sitar, indian flute, tibetan bells, tambourine, shaker, vocoder).

Cost:  10€
Doors: 7:00PM

Tickets and more info: Magasin 4

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More bands added to Eindhoven Psych Lab

As announced before, we are curating a stage at Eindhoven Psych Lab entitled 'The Counterblast Experiment' and the festival have just added some more bands to the line-up:

Eindhoven Psych Lab 
6 + 7 june 2014

Wooden Shjips / Suuns / Spectrum
Hookworms / The Growlers / Pink Mountaintops / Föllakzoid / Disappears / Terakaft
Night Beats / Elephant Stone / The Oscillation / Cosmonauts / Mugstar / Nisennenmondai  / Weird Owl / Crows / Dans Dans / Peter J Taylor Big Band

The Counterblast Experiment presented by Rocket Recordings:
Teeth of The Sea / Gnod / Terminal Cheesecake / Anthroprophh / Lay Llamas / DJ's – Chris Rocket and Walter Roadburn 

Fuzz Club presents:
Sonic Jesus / Cosmic Dead / Wall Of Death / Radar Men From the Moon / The Underground Youth / The Wands / The Woken Trees

Tickets can be bought from here: Eindhoven Psych Lab

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Lay Llamas to play Thalassa Festival

Lay Llamas have been announced to play the Thalassa Festival in Rome on 3-5 April.

They are joined by a stellar line up of Italian Occult psych bands that include:

CREAPOPOLVSQVE
DONATO EPIRO
DREAM WEAPON RITUAL
FULKANELLI
GUSTOFORTE
LA PIRAMIDE DI SANGUE
LAY LLAMAS
MAI MAI MAI
MAMUTHONES
METZENGERSTEIN
PSALM 'n' LOCKER
SPETTRO FAMILY
VALERIO COSI
VOSTOK LAKE

There will be a ltd edition cassette containing exclusive tracks by bands that are playing. We have heard the Lay Llamas track and it is great, so worth tracking down.

More info about the festival can be found here: Thalassa

We will have lots of exciting Lay Llamas news for you within the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

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Teeth of the Sea and Gnod to play at this years Supernormal Festival

As you know, we at Rocket are massive fans of Supernormal Festival, and proudly state it as the best festival we have ever attended (we even helped curate the first year).

The first bands for this year's event which takes place on 8-10 August have just been announced and as it is Supernormal's fifth year, they are bringing back some old faves to celebrate this milestone.

Teeth of the Sea and Gnod, join Thought Forms, Esben and the Witch, Sly and the family Drone, Henry Bleaker, Silver Stairs Of Ketchikan and many others for what will be as always a great weekend.

This is what the folks at Supernormal say:

First Acts Announced

Supernormal 2014 marks both the fifth year of the festival and also the twentieth year of Braziers International Artists Workshop, from whence Supernormal evolved. Although the festival’s been through plenty of changes since its first year in 2010, the spirit of iconoclasm and adventure at the heart of it is exactly the same. In 2014 we’ll once again be blurring the boundaries between art and music, encouraging collaboration between different disciplines and doing everything we can to transcend the conventional idea of what a festival can be.

This year we’ve decided, as a kind of celebration of what’s transpired so far, to invite back some of those who’ve contributed to Supernormal in the last four years, like Gnod, Sly & The Family Drone. Teeth Of The Sea and Thought Forms. Moreover, with brand new artists as diverse as Arabrot, Esben & The Witch and part wild horses mane on both sides also confirmed, along with projects like Phil Minton’s Feral Choir destroying the distinction between audience and artist, Supernormal Number 5 continues to represent the alternative’s alternative.

We are delighted to confirm:

Anji Cheung  |  Arabrot  |  Barberos  |  Death Shanties  |  Esben And The Witch
Falling Boy  |  Flamingods  |  Frank Fairfield  |  Gnod  |  Hacker Farm
Henry Blacker  |  Horse Loom  |  Joanna Gruesome  |  Kemper Norton
Luminous Bodies  |  Lutine  |  Maggie Nichols  |  MXLX  |  NG-52s  |  Palehorse
part wild horses mane on both sides: Conduit of the bottomless submundane
Phil Minton’s Feral Choir  |  Silver Stairs Of Ketchikan  |  Slum of Legs
Sly & The Family Drone  |  Spaceheads  |  Speak Galactic
SXSWNG  |  Teeth Of The Sea  |  Thought Forms

You can find more details about all the above acts by visiting the programme page

There are loads more acts and a full programme of arts and activities to come. Tickets are available now priced at £80 (no booking fees).

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR TICKET!

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Julian Cope's last 'Address'

We were very sad to hear that after 18 odd years Julian Cope has made is last 'Address Drudion'. We are sure you are all well aware of this monthly piece where Julian presented to the world reviews of some of the best 'under the radar' sounds being made today.

The monthly address regularly introduced Mission Control to some amazing records, it even introduced us to bands that eventually released records on Rocket. One example is Residual Echoes, it was from Julian's review that made us contact the band and subsequently we put our their second record, plus it led to us releasing the stunning album by Residual Echoes friends the mighty Mammatus.

Apart from these great musical discoveries, Julian's 'Address' was also a champion of our Rocket releases, constantly raving about our Teeth of the Sea, Gnod, The Heads, Anthroprophh etc records.

So as a label the news of this is the last 'Address' leaves us with a massive hole, there aren't many people out there who 'get' what we do like Mr Cope did….so we would just like to say a big THANK YOU to Julian for all his support over the years, it definitely didn't go unnoticed.

You can read Julian's last address and an archive of previous ones here: Head Heritage

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The Quietus interview Teeth of the Sea about their 'The Last Man' project

This is what The Quietus have said about Teeth of the Sea's forthcoming 'The Last Man' project that we unveiled here :

For the upcoming CineGlobe festival, Teeth Of The Sea are set to perform a live audiovisual interpretation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four at CERN in Geneva on March 20 (head here for further details and tickets). It follows their album Master last year, one of the Quietus' top records of the year, as well as a number of live soundtrack projects the band have taken up previously, scoring Doomsday, 2001: A Space Odyssey and, most recently, A Field In England, at the 2013 Cork Film Festival, with the latter set for release for Record Store Day. The band are again collaborating with their visual partner Benjamin Barfoot for the CineGlobe set, which will mark 30 years since the book's eponymous date. We asked guitarist Jimmy Martin to fill us in on the project:

What made you choose to score a book this time around? What made you choose to soundtrack Nineteen Eighty-Four?

Jimmy Martin: Nineteen Eighty-Four's cultural cachet is so enormous that I'm not sure if we felt we were scoring the book per se. Although it sounds a bit arrogant, we always knew what we did would be informed by other versions and adaptations of the book in a sense, but in terms of steering clear of them we wanted to go back to the central themes of the book and re-invent them anew. There's a universal impact to Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I think we felt like we wanted to get that across in the most brutal, unflinching way possible. Obviously the nature of the proposal was very exciting to us too, not least because of the venue, and it was nice to have another challenge thrown at us so soon after the A Field In England – Re-imagined soundtrack project. It's our nature as a band to bite off more than we can chew!

Read the rest of the revealing interview here: The Quietus

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