30 Apr 2023

Rocket Probes – April 2023

Goat – Seu Sangue EP
(Brand new track and 3 remixes)
Goat 

Haslanded – The Mill Sessions Vol.1
(Yep, we are blowing our own synths)
Haslanded 

Och – Så vidare EP
(New Jams by the mighty Och)
Och

Lorelle Meets The Obsolete – Dínamo
(New sounds from Mexico)
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete

Self-Immolation Music – Live in Electron House
(One for you Loop/S3 fans...featuring member of The Shits)
Self-Immolation Music

Syrinx – Aura Spinray
(Middle Eastern psych from 70s Canada)
Syrinx

Eddie Gale – Ghetto Music
(Spiritual)
Eddie Gale

Westside Gunn - Omars Coming
(Psyched hip-hop for The Wire fans...a Cherrystones recommendation)
Westside Gunn

Ame Son – Seventh Time Key
(Fuzzed and flute grooves)
Ame Son

Keith Hudson – Darkest Night on a Wet Looking Road
(Killer track)
Keith Hudson 

Necronomicon - Requiem Vom Ende
(Krautrock from '72)
Necronomicon

African Head Charge – Microdosing
(New track and new album!)
African Head Charge

Brast Burn – Debon
(Japanese avant rock from '75)
Brast Burn

Moebius & Beerbohm – Subito
(Driving repetitions)
Moebius & Beerbohm 

Haress – I Think, I Think
(On the great Wrong Speed)
Haress

Strife – Rush
(Proto Maiden meets Cooper band psych-rock)
Strife

Pyrolater – Die Haut Der Frau
(German elektro sounds)
Pyrolater

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Glacier
(Watch the film Coda if you haven't...RIP)
Ryuichi Sakamoto

Jah Shaka – The Commandments of Dub series 5
(Rest in Power)
Jah Shaka


Listen to and follow our Rocket Probes Spotify Playlist:


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14 Apr 2023

Goat's 'Seu Sangue' EP is released today


Today sees the release of Goat's 'Seu Sangue' EP – a four track EP featuring four remixes taken from their latest album Oh Death and a brand new track called Seu Sangue.

The EP is available to buy on Ltd edition cassette via bandcamp, but be warned there's only a handful of copies left:

Bandcamp

The band will have a small number of cassette's on sale on their up-and-coming sold out tour that starts tomorrow in Bristol:

April 15 / Bristol / SWX
April 16 / Birmingham / The Mill
April 17 /  Leeds / Brudenell Social Club
April 18 / Glasgow / Garage
April 19 /  Newcastle / Boiler Shop
April 20 / Manchester / Gorilla
April 21 / Brighton / Chalk
April 22 / London April / Brixton Electric

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'Seu Sangue' EP starts off with the ‘12” Extended Remix’ of lead single from ‘Oh Death’, ‘Under No Nation’. The remix has been created by MIEN’s John Mark Lapham, with help from the incredibly talented Thor Harris on extra percussion!

Next up is Rocket remixer faithful, Shit & Shine remixing the second single from ‘Oh Death’ the tribal rhythm driven track of ‘Do The Dance’.

Sonic Boom was the first person to ask if they could remix a track off of ‘Oh Death’, and he dived straight for the album’s opener, the fuzz heavy ‘Soon You Die’ – which is the third track on the EP.

The last remix is by Marlene Ribeiro (Gnod) who’s latest album ‘Toquei No Sol’ was released in January this year. Marlene takes the track ‘Remind Yourself’ and turns it into an organic, techno raga.

And finally, the EP is finished by a brand new track, the title track ‘Seu Sangue’ the EP’s title track is a beautiful, four minute, ‘folk drone’ hymn.



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The Shits album 'You're A Mess' is released today


"Delve into their metallic, acid stripped, pig-fuck grooves and you will find a chaotic world of inverted psychedelia and jet black – fucking appalling – enlightenment waiting for you." The Quietus

“Unfettered heaviness, refined songwriting, sustained repetition and drone-quality ensuring a headbanging, holistic constant that makes You’re a Mess a truly therapeutic album.” Louder Than War

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The Shits mighty 'You're A Mess' is out today, and we couldn't be happier to finally share with you this incredible beast of an album.

You can buy the album on ltd edition Ash Grey Vinyl from Bandcamp here:


Or pick up the ltd edition Red Vinyl from your local record shop.

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The band are heading out for some shows too, including an album launch at London's Shacklewell Arms tonight:

14 April / London / Shacklewell Arms
15 April / Leeds / Secret Venue
19 April / Tilburg / Roadburn Festival
20 April / Ghent / De Roes
21 April / Mannheim / Juz
02 May / Salford / The White Hotel (supporting Gnod)




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7 Apr 2023

April 2023 Bandcamp Friday


It is Bandcamp Friday once again, and it is a bit of a special one this month as we are celebrating the label's 25 Anniversary with a couple of new goodies you can pick-up:

Various – Launch300 LP
(Preorder our 300th release – a special 8 track 'vinyl only / bandcamp exclusive' compilation LP celebrating our 25 Anniversary – all unreleased music)

Rocket25 T-shirt
(Made-to-order, one print only tshirt design to celebrate our 25th Anniversary – two versions available, single or double sided print)

GOAT – Seu Sangue EP  Cassette/DL
(Preorder the last couple of copies of this ltd edition cassette featuring four remixes of tracks from latest album 'Oh Death' - plus one previously unreleased track)

Gås T-shirt
(Last chance to put your name down for a made-to-order, one print only Gås tshirt)

The Shits – You're A Mess  LP/DL
(Preorder this mighty new album on ash grey vinyl – it is a bit special this one!!)

Gnoomes – Ax Ox  LP/DL
(Incredibly unique new album from this band that sounds like no other – on green/blue swirl vinyl)

Marlene Ribeiro – Toquei no Sol  LP/DL
(A few copies of this incredible album left on yellow vinyl)

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Plus there's lots of other great releases and t-shirts from many of your Rocket faves, all via here:

Rocket Bandcamp

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6 Apr 2023

Introducing 'Haslanded' Electronic Project

Introducing 'Haslanded' Electronic Project:

Between 2014 and 2016 four friends (Andrew Dewar Ainslie, Kevin Wells, John O'Carroll & Chris Reeder) would meet at The Mill recording studio near Reading, each armed with a different synthesizer. Without a plan, goal or direction and with each member having their own unique influences, they just filled the room with psychedelic lasers, made noise and hit record. Every 6 hour session was recorded, never with the thought of ever being released, it was simply recorded to document for posterity's sake.

Now, after the best part of a decade sitting on hard drives, the friends decided to revisit these recordings and what they heard surprised them. They agreed that some of the tracks should see the light of day and be shared with the world.

So here we are now at “The Mill Sessions Vol.1”. An EP that consists of three tracks, recorded and mixed sometime between 2015 and 2016. The first two tracks '7 Miles Out' and 'Saturation Point' were mixed by former UK and now US based producer Andrew Dewar Ainslie, while the third track from the EP 'Containment Wall' was mixed by Sasha Piankov of Rocket Recordings band Gnoomes.

Watch the teaser here: Teaser 

There are plans to release more tracks from the Haslanded Mill Sessions in the future, so watch this space!

The EP will be available to buy/stream digitally from the 7th of April


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Haslanded:
Andrew – Synth
Chris – Synth
John – Synth, Voice & Lasers
Kev – Synth

Improvised live in The Mill between 2015 and 2016
Tracks 1, 2 mixed by Andrew Dewar Ainslie
Track 3 mixed by Sasha Piankov
Mastered by Andrew Dewar Ainslie

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5 Apr 2023

Rocket 25th Anniversary T-shirts



Rocket 25th Anniversary T-shirts:

To celebrate a quarter century on the outer realms of exploration we will be producing a debonair of new Rocket 25th Anniversary T-shirts:

- Design One with a large 'Rocket 25' Logo

- Design Two with a small breast 'Rocket 25' Logo on the front and a back print that chronicle's every Rocket band voyager that has released a record bearing the label's insignia.

These T-shirts will be up on Pre-sale on Bandcamp Friday (April 7th) & only available for a month. 

Pre-order the T-shirts from here: Bandcamp

Get on board!

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4 Apr 2023

Introducing LAUNCH300


To celebrate our 25th anniversary this year we have decided to put together a very special compilation album – and coincidentally, it is also our 300th release!

Simply titled 'Launch300' this ltd edition, Bandcamp, vinyl only compilation features exclusive and unreleased tracks by Centrum, Gnod, Goat, J. Zunz, Och, Shit & Shine, Smote and The Utopia Strong. The album comes packaged in beautiful original artwork by the infamous French 70's artist Philipe Caza, that has been exclusively licensed for this release.

Launch300 LP is released on 30th June and presale opens via Bandcamp at 8am (GMT) Friday 7th April here

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LAUNCH300 - ROCKET 25

We are all artefacts for space travel, to paraphrase William Burroughs. Yet how to facilitate such journeys into either inner or outer space? This luckily is where Rocket Recordings come in, 25 years into their continuing mission.

Operating from a 1998 launchpad in Bristol, Rocket's questing vision has made them pathfinders for a particular kind of psychic terrain. The label may have been founded on disparate and dissolute passions - the vital grit and street-level attack of old-skool Hip Hop and Thrash Metal, the power of repetition, the astral awaydays of Hawkwind, the Fuzz and Wah of garage rock and early Sub Pop and the constellational signposts that connect CAN, Funkadelic, Wax Trax Records & Aphex Twin on a map to other dimensions. Yet the stubbornly uncompromising ethos has always been to push beyond boundaries into areas which even the true heads have thus far never ventured.

To celebrate a quarter century on the outer realms of exploration, naturally these voyagers have some special ventures planned, A choice selection of Rocket affiliated artists (including Alison Cotton, Marlene Ribeiro, J Zunz, The Shits, Holy Scum and Teeth Of The Sea) will be descending on Tilburg in the Netherlands for a celebration at Roadburn, Europe's most forward-thinking heavy festival. Haslanded, a project including the electronic talents of founders Chris Reeder and John O'Carroll, has its first release on the starting blocks. A debonair new Rocket 25th anniversary T-shirt chronicles every band that's released records bearing the label's insignia. LAUNCH300, meanwhile, is a vital celebratory compilation collecting together eight of the current Rocket roster, all offering full-throttle salvos of metaphysical salvation.

Resplendent in third-eye-cleansing sleeve art referencing French comic artist Philippe Caza, it's a travelogue that traverses from the amp-damaging repetitive thunder of Gnod's 'Nought Sayin'' to the minimal electronic spellcasting of J. Zunz's 'Radix', from the unsettling invective of Shit & Shine's gleefully ornery 'What’d You Mean, What?, What' to the drone-based bliss of Centrum's "Dü är så värdefull", from Och's nocturnal revelations to The Utopia Strong's celestial visions, and from the potent rural vibrations of Smote's 'Coal Tongue' to Goat's dancefloor-ready 'Goatsnake' without losing coherence or focus.

LAUNCH300 measures out the widescreen horizons of Rocket Recordings as it embarks on the next quarter century - a label with its feet on the ground and its head mapping out a defiant course for the unknown.

Get on board.

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3 Apr 2023

Rocket Celebrates 25 Years of Existence


We are hugely delighted to share in our celebration that the label has reached 25 years into our continuing mission of mapping out a defiant course to the unknown.

As well as the label's curation in April at the mighty Roadburn Festival & some other celebratory events (sadly, no 3 day weekend festival again I'm afraid) we will be celebrating 25 years with some other exciting announcements this week.

Watch our little Rocket25 video here:



Anyway, to 25 Years......

From the first record launched into space in March 1998, 25 Years seems a long time - albeit with many highs & lows we are extremely humble to be able to continue to do what we do.


Rocket would like to thank all the bands, musicians, artists and freaks we have worked with in The last 25 years.

Without all of you incredible people we would not be here.

We would also like to say a huge thanks to Cargo distribution for their continued help and support they have given us over the years.

And finally a massive thanks to all you out there for engaging in anything Rocket related over the years, from releases you have bought, bands you have watched live, anything no matter how small you have supported us with, we salute you!!

It means more than you realise.

Chris & Johnny

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