Rocket Probes – June 2021 playlist

AHRKH – Bliss Waves From The Heart Realm
(Blissful sounds from Alex Gnod...on the every wonderful Zam Zam)
AHRKH

The Parasites Of The Western World ‎– Substrata
(Post-punk Hawkwing sounds from 1980)
The Parasites Of The Western World

Happy End – Happy End
(Japanese fuzzed folk rock)
Happy End

Don Cherry – The Summer House Sessions
(The 'Don') 
Don Cherry

Bloody Head – The Temple Pillars Dissolve Into The Clouds
(Psyched noise rock on Hominid)
Bloody Head

Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh – The Rounds
(Viola excursions)
Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh

The Flag Fen Project – The Burning of Flag Fen
(Fuzzy rhythmic noises from Bristol)
The Flag Fen Project 

Et Cetera – Raga
(Great groove)
Et Cetera 

Bathory – Blood Fire Death
(Odens Ride Over Nordland)
Bathory

Felinto – Futuro Antigo Perpétuo
(Feat Deafkids and Rakta members – on the ever reliable Bristol label Bokeh)
Felinto

David Nance – Gentle Traitor
(If Velvet Underground had Jaki on Drums and Did Mik on audio generator)
David Nance

Smash – El Garrotin
(Spanish wah-pop from '71)
Smash

Drexciya – The last transmission
(Classic techno)
Drexciya

Buffy Saint Marie – Poppies
(What 'stereo' was invented for)
Buffy Saint Marie

Moondog – Invocation
(Classic jazz march)
Moondog

KXP – Mehu Moments
(Kosmische Middle Eastern synth sounds)
KXP 

The Shits – The Jackal
(Lovely filth)
The Shits

DJ Q – Thief in the Night (Al Wootton Remix)
(Dubbed sonic beats)
DJ Q

Mercury Rev – Boces
(Reconnecting with with this weird gem of an album)
Mercury Rev

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou Dahomey – Min E Wa..We Non Dou
(Fuzzed repetitions)
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou Dahomey

Jóhann Jóhannsson – Arrival Soundtrack
(A work of genius)
Jóhann Jóhannsson

Broadcast – Hawk
(Great track from a great band)
Broadcast

Leven Signs – Rumi
(80's pop repetitions, bit of a not not fun vibe about it)
Leven Signs

Hawkwind – The Hall of the Mountain Grail
(Their best album has been getting lots of spins this month)
Hawkwind

Jon Hassel – Amsterdam Blue
(RIP a true innovator)
Jon Hassel 

Listen to our updated monthly  Rocket Probes Spotify playlist:

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Weirdo Shrine reviews and interviews The Holy Family

It says:

The Holy Family is a new art music project by members of Guapo, and their debut album is a wonderful dreamy forest walk of adventurous freak folk chants and shamanistic mumblings wrapped in thick clouds of purple smoke. It is really beside any point to reference this work to other music, the point is more to take it in with your third eye opened up as wide as mentally possible and let the concept engulf you.

The term freak folk has been coined before, but never really justly. Just listen to this record and realize why. The album unfolds to the listener as some kind of strange magical realistic children’s book, with lots of colorful pictures and a completely different feel to each page. though its nature is narrative, how the story goes exactly remains completely up to the listener. The Holy Family has written a deep trip, but it is lighter than heavy trips usually are. It is a magical wonderland you can visit when you feel like, and be on your way again when you leave. It is a unique experience, and I just had to talk its mastermind David Smith. Here is what he had to say:

David Smith, how have you been? How have you been keeping yourself in these troubled times? 

FORTUNATE AND THANKFUL THAT I’VE BEEN ABLE TO KEEP A ROOF OVER MY HEAD FOR SURE AND COMPLETING THIS MONSTER OF A NEW RECORD HAS BEEN A MUCH NEEDED DISTRACTION AND HELPED KEEP ME SANE…..

My word, this new album of yours is an incredible album! So much happening, so many different styles and directions! Could you sketch me your band and own your musical background that would lead to such an album?

I THINK FOR PEOPLE THAT ARE FAMILIAR WITH MY WORK WITH GUAPO AND THE STARGAZER’S ASSISTANT YOU CAN PLOT A PATHWAY THROUGH THE STARS THAT LEADS TO THIS ALBUM...

Read the rest here:  Weirdo Shrine

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At The Barrier reviews The Holy Family album

They say:

Let’s start with some connections – The Holy Family exists in some sort of bizarre Venn diagram where Knifeworld, Guapo and The Utopia Strong crossover. David J. Smith acts as conductor along with longtime collaborators Kavus Torabi, Emmett Elvin, Sam Warren and Michael J. York. A bit of a modern psychedelic fantasy football dream team. Like having Mount, Foden AND Grealish in the England footy team.

“I guess if I had to try to put it into words it’s my attempt at a musical interpretation of a very trippy and psychedelic murder mystery tale, or otherworldly dream / hallucination,” says Mr Smith. He offers further insight – talk of metaphysical trance states, heat-haze atmospherics, febrile incantations and the like – but you can check that on their Bandcamp page. Improvise and refine seems to have been the philosophy and order of the day and the result is a sprawling double album (in old money) of craft and creation.

It’s clear that no boundaries were harmed in the making of thirteen tracks that drip with rich in adventurous philosophy. On the one hand, it makes the likes of progressive pioneers like King Crimson (and Gentle Giant who dared to be deliberately contrary) seem restrained and unimaginative. On the other, its down to their pioneering efforts that we land at The Holy Family...

Read the rest here:  At The Barrier

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Teeth of the Sea announce Denmark and Norway shows with Hey Colossus

First time these bands have played in Scandinavia...

Nov 25 / DE  / Copenhagen / Lopen  Tickets
Nov 26 / NO  / Oslo / Bla 
Nov 27 / DE  / Aalborg / 1000FRYD  Info

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Teeth of the Sea's full list of shows, now reads:

Aug 27 - 29 / London / Raw Power Festival

w/ The Utopia Strong:
Nov 13 / Manchester / The Carlton Club 
Nov 14 / York / The Crescent
Nov 15 / Barrow In Furness / Barrow Underground Music Society
Nov 16 / Newcastle / The Cluny 
Nov 17 / Glasgow / Broadcast 
Nov 18 / Bristol / Strange Brew 
Nov 19 / Cambridge / Mash 
Nov 20 / London / Lexington (MATINEE AND EVENING SHOW) 

w/ Hey Colossus:
Nov 25 / DE  / Copenhagen / Lopen 
Nov 26 / NO  / Oslo / Bla 
Nov 27 / DE  / Aalborg / 1000FRYD

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Backseat Mafia reviews The Holy Family

They say:

MASTERFUL psychedelic imprint Rocket Recordings has added another string to its bow with the signing of the hallucinatory collective The Holy Family, whose first album arrives this Friday. And a hell of a trip it is, too, roaming freely across modern electronica and the oldest, earthiest folk, the most dronesome of motorik and the molten mantle of acid rock.

The band is the feverish brainchild of David J. Smith, otherwise of Guapo and Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, and thus a name well appreciated by voyagers out into more esoteric sonic landscapes.

The Holy Family, the album of the same name, presents as a 13-track, double-album explosion through worlds of psychedelia, pastoral psych-folk, kosmiche and more, ever-shifting, ever-seductive.

“I guess if I had to try to put it into words, it’s my attempt at a musical interpretation of a very trippy and psychedelic murder mystery tale, or otherworldly dream/hallucination,” reflects David.

For the band as a whole, aesthetic inspiration comes from the magical realism of Angela Carter – whose 1991 documentary The Holy Family Album christened the new project – and the surrealist art of Dorothea Tanning. Both point at a dark and spectral brew of mushroomy excellence; a burrow into a deeper folklore of the land that still whispers its name if you listen deeply enough...

Read the rest here: Backseat Mafia

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Backseat Mafia interviews Land Trance and reveals new (old) video

It reads:

ALTHOUGH their debut album, First Séance, was only released via Rocket Recordings last week, and originally through Forest Swords’ Dense Truth label in May 2020, the duo behind the Land Trance name have developed their musical selves in close proximity and in tandem with each other for more than a decade.

Land Trance are comprised of Benjamin D. Duvall – founder of the acclaimed Ex-Easter Island Head, in which he explored the transfixing percussive ensemble composition style that permeates parts of First Séance – and Andrew P.M. Hunt – embodying songwriting, synthesis and texture as Dialect (with a release for RVNG, Under~Between, out in March) and leader of art rock band Outfit.

As Land Trance, they incorporate electro-acoustic and studio as post-production techniques, using diverse elements like zither, drum machine, music box, dictaphone, synthesiser and melodica amongst other sonic sources. This manifested in pastoral and ruminative aural tapestries that tap into the duo’s personal musical vocabularies, as well as the geographical energies from which the album was recorded: a bedroom overlooking Concert Square, the thumping epicentre of Liverpool nightlife, and pieced together in the home studio they share in a converted embassy.

Here, Benjamin Duvall explains the effect of these locations upon the recording of the album, the cinematic influences on the album’s narrative, the choices that impact the array of instrumentation used, and more...

Read the interview here: Backseat Mafia

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The Sleeping Shamen reviews The Holy Family

They say:

A piece of work that makes me feel unschooled, like there should be some points of reference that I’m able to draw on to convey to you, the reader, what it sounds like. But I suspect that all comparisons are questionable here, and perhaps to tell you the story and the feel is more appropriate for this ‘phantasmagoric journey’. Does it help if I tell you that David J Smith was at the helm? That Kavus Torabi, Emmett Elvin, Sam Warren and Michael J. York contributed? That I thought of Pink Floyd and Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore, Comus and GNOD and The Future Sound Of London? That will only tell you about my own limited window on the world.

The Holy Family seem to speak of the ambiguity of knowledge – Philip K Dick’s dubious, poisonous revelation, the toxic gnosis that undoes as it teaches. The ‘acid casualty’ freely invoked in accompanying notes is our guide, a charged figure, as after all don’t we love that Syd character for the second-hand glory and hubris? The purpose is perhaps to celebrate the darkened seeing we once glimpsed, and the ghosts that went ahead of us into that mist.

What is it? A detective story? A manifesto? If words are the key The Holy Family tell us of their wandering soundplaces that ‘these stylistic forays are married with relentless dream logic into one unifying kaleidoscopic vision’ and for all its unmanageable enormity and challenge, this is indeed both relentless and unified. The whole is built on fluid instrumentation, a wisdom, only what is needed for each scene. Not sure what is there at the bottom of the kaleidoscope, but we can keep looking...

Read the rest of this great review here: The Sleeping Shamen

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GOAT announce two new shows

After the surprise announcement that GOAT were going to play Palp Festival in the Swiss Alps the band have now announced two more shows.

They will play Plissken Festival in Athens on Sep 11-12.

Info: Plissken Festival 

Then on Oct 23  the band play a rare show in Sweden, at Plan B in Malmo.

Info: Plan B

GOAT show are rare so these are not to be missed

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The Utopia Strong play the Albany this weekend

The Utopia Strong return to the stage this Saturday for a special a show at the Albany in Deptford as part of 'Charles Hayward presents…' evening.

Info here: Charles Hayward presents…

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Land Trance's First Séance LP is released today

“Spectacular debut album.”
The Quietus  (No. 14 Album Of 2020)

“A journey exploring every corner of the experimental music landscape.”
Get Into This

“Conjuring moments of unadulterated transcendence.”
Fruits and Grooves

"A record as dazzlingly cinematic as it is truly exploratory." 

Backseat Mafia

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Last year the band Land Trance, a collaboration between Liverpool-based musicians Andrew P.M Hunt (Dialect) and Benjamin D. Duvall (Ex-Easter Island Head) released their debut album ‘First Séance’ on Forest Swords’ Dense Truth label. The album quickly became one of our albums of the year and was also featured in The Quietus prestigious Top 100 Albums of the Year list at #14.

We felt this was an album that needed to be heard on vinyl (only released digitally up to now) and we were the label who had to do it.

So we are proud to announce that you can pick up this incredible debut album by Land Trance on ltd edition vinyl from your local record shop as from today.

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Working together as Land Trance, the duo utilise spontaneous electro-acoustic improvisation and studio-as-instrument post production to explore the inner and outer reaches of each other’s musical vocabularies. Tracks oscillate between vocal-led ecclesiastical yearning (Transcript, Chilean Miners) and ecstatic assemblages of sound (Beach Mystery, A Raft), always suggesting a palpable sense of geography with an allusive sense of place.

‘First Séance’ elevates deceptively simple materials and means with vivid imagination and bold compositional strategies, transcending the intimate scale of bedroom recording and DIY sound creation. It presents a wholly original set of musical environments, and a compelling document of intuition, friendship and artistic curiosity.

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Backseat Mafia gives Land Trance's First Séance 9/10 review

They say:

INITIALLY released last year through Forest Sword’s Dense Truth label and imminently to be released on the mercurial Rocket Recordings, First Séance is the debut album from Land Trance: a collaborative project borne from the dual, equally ingenious musical gifts of Andrew P.M. Hunt and Benjamin D. Duvall.

Although it is their debut album, the duo’s paths have long been intertwined. The two have long shared rehearsal spaces and band mates – whilst Duvall was delving into percussive ensemble composition as the founder of the acclaimed Ex-Easter Island Head, Hunt was exploring the possibilities of songwriting, synthesis and texture as Dialect and leader of art rock band Outfit.

The album combines electro-acoustic and studio as post-production, utilising zither, drum machine, music box, dictaphone, synthesiser, melodica and more. This vast artistic curiosity is satisfied through metamorphosing, hypnagogic soundscapes; inducing soporific states that never once deviate from their profoundly hypnotic stream. The singular allure of the album lies in the single, unwavering emotion focused through Land Trance’s captivating sonic collage; unlike other artists, whose efforts at doing so prove blander than a bowl of Shreddies, they imbue the record with a soul-stirring, distinctive melancholy. The well of this unquenchable melancholic elixir in fact remains constantly full, even after umpteen listens. This could be because of the duo’s ability to – through each track, in a different but similarly ingenious fashion – splice this emotion into many guises; using myriad instrumentation in myriad ways...

Read the rest here: Backseat Mafia

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The Utopia Strong to play Down At The Abbey festival in Reading

Information and tickets can be found here: Down At The Abbey 

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Teeth of the Sea & The Utopia Strong joint UK November Tour

We are throughly delighted to share with you that Teeth of the Sea & The Utopia Strong will be heading out for a joint UK tour.

 

November 2021:

Sat 13th - The Carlton Club, Manchester

Sun 14th - The Crescent, York

Mon 15th - Barrow Underground Music Society, Barrow In Furness

Tue 16th - The Cluny, Newcastle

Wed 17th - Stereo, Glasgow

Thur 18th - Strange Brew, Bristol

Fri 19th - Mash, Cambridge

Sat 20th - Lexington, London

These shows are definitely not to be missed!!

Tickets: tbc

 

Keep an eye out for both The Utopia Strong debut & Teeth of Sea's Wraith vinyl re-issue's later in the year

 

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Julie's Haircut to play Off Tune Festival

Info about the festival can be found here: Off Tune

Tickets: Dice FM

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Listen to exclusive Gnoomes mix for Frame

Gnoomes posted this:

"Check out a special mix we made for frame., a community of artists, deejays and creative people based in Florence, Italy!"

Listen here: Soundcloud

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Trebuchet reviews DJINN's Transmission

They say:

Fan’s of band-on-endless-hiatus GOAT needing a world-psyche fix need look no further than DJINN. Whatever magical goose Rocket Recordings has tucked away just seems to produce golden egg after golden egg and along with Berlin’s Glitterbeat show us that there is a rich well of stunning music if you’re willing to dig away from the main road. Nestled between Jazz, 70s fusion, and a healthy dose of exotica DJINN hint at the smoky escapisms of philosophy, sex, and drugs. Taking the cyclical bass magic of GOAT (and the whole name-in-CAPs thing) they’ve let the drummer loose, rounded it out with stoned percussion and some Interzone based wind/brass instrumentation. It works. Lost in Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991) all the tracks have a separate scenic quality and rather than adhering to a singular sound the album grooves from one distinct setting to the next. Despite these pronounced shifts there are subtle consistencies in the mix that bring all the arrangements together in a complimentary way.  While not as primal soul shaking as GOAT this record stands up and Transmission is well worth lighting up and inhaling.

Read the review here:  Trebuchet

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