Rocket Probes December 2011 Playlist

Anthroprophh - Zeit des alten Mannes / Myalistic ???
(The Heads 'Rock Prof' getting into some serious Kraut inspired Can/Ra, listen: Zeit / Myalistic)

Black Tempest - Supernormal
(3cd album of BT's set at Supernormal and rehearsal jams...Kosmiche wonderfulness)

Sun Araw - Ancient Romans
(Latest album of psyched out, dubbed out, groove rock)

Mugstar - Serra (Robert Hampson mixes)
(How essential is this record!!!!)

The Fall - Are You Are The Missing Winner
(Another great album of fuzz repetition, especially on the track Crop-dust)

NoMeansNo - Wrong
(Haven't listened to this album in many many many years, since i lent it out in the early/mid 90's and never got it back but great to pick up a cheap copy and give it a good spin once again!! Still a seriously good fun listen)

Cage & Aviary - Migration
(Our favourite dubbed out, acid effected, cosmic disco heads finally land their album...if you have heard their Teeth of the Sea, **k and Gnod remixes, you have an idea of what to expect)

Blue Phantom - Violence
(Fuzz guitars and frantic drumming combine to make a sound like the Cooper band!!...taken from the fuzzy prog album Distortions)

Neil Campbell - Sol Powr

(Finnish label Lal Lal Lal's minimal Krautjam)

3 Leafs - Titular Lines

(Hypnotic Bitches Brewing psyche)

Von Himmel - Space Communion

(Experimental Kraut in a BBC Radiophonic Workshop Cluster)

Alice Cooper Band - Love it to Death / Killer

(Check out 'Black Ju Ju' live at the Cincinnati Pop Festival online & realise what a mistake it was to sack your band)

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Teeth of the Sea play 'God don't like it' mini festival

Promoters 'God don't like it' are calling it a day and are putting on four nights at the Lexington in London as a farewell.

Rocket's very own Teeth of the Sea are playing one of these nights on December 28th

You can buy tickets here

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GNOD appear in NME ‘Most Underrated’ album list 2011

GNOD appear in the NME's 2011 ‘Most Underrated’ album list. The list features 'Ingnodwetrust' (Rocket Recordings) and 'Chaudelande Vol. 1' (Tamed Records) & we couldn't agree more, who doesn't love GNOD, GNOD is love!

"Manchester 2011: if you weren't on the endless chase for a slew of smoke-and-mirror acts sneaking around the Victorian back streets and grubby suburbs of their city, then you were feverishly buying up all remaining stocks of flares and parkas in anticipation of The Stone Roses' multi-million making return. This is, of course, what Manchester will be best known for this year, but unfairly, as proven by this brace of albums from Gnod, the north west's premiere far-reaching psychedelic troupe. Firstly with the Rocket Recordings-released 'Ingnodwetrust' Gnod sought to melt minds methodically, 'Tony's First Communion' stretching to over 20 minutes of gradually swirling echoes and half-caught vocals, a stoic one-note bassline keeping all at bay; 'Vatican' dragged the intensity further with slowcore riffs bludgeoning the senses into the darkest depths. Then, following the group's decampment to Chaudelande, France, they really let loose: 'Volume 1' the ensuring collection of recordings from a drug-fuelled few days, boasts riffs charred to within an inch of their life and the wildness of their motorik threatening to tear throbbing limb from limb when transferred live. In my opinion, if you wanted to focus on WU LYF's pre-determined theatrics then you're welcome to them; but it was Gnod who who provided a snapshot of the city's real core."

Read the full NME list here

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Revolt of the Apes interviews GNOD

The great 'Revolt of the Apes' have just published an awesome interview with the mighty Gnod.

Read it here

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Teeth of the Sea to play British Wildlife Festival in Leeds

Teeth of the Sea are playing this great festival called British Wildlife at the Brudnell Social Club in Leeds on March 3rd. They will be playing alongside fellow cosmic travellers like Hookworms, Hey Colossus and Zun Zun Egui.

More information and tickets for the festival can be found here

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Swedish band Hills unleash a new blog

Our second favourite band from Sweden (after Goat) have put a little blog together for all things about the band and for a reference place for 'discovered' fuzz, psych and general weirdness.

Check it out here:

http://hillsbg.blogspot.com/

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Teeth of the Sea bring 'Reaper' to London

We are very excited to announce that Teeth of the Sea are bringing their live soundtrack 'Reaper' to the Lexington on January 15th.

For those who don't know, he band have written a unique 45 minute piece of music to accompany a reworking of the film 'Doomsday' which the band edited themselves. They performed this live soundtrack in the summer at the amazing Brancage festival, and due to the requests from fans and an invite from the London Short Film festival, the band have agreed to perform this amazing sound and visual experience on a stage just 'one more time'.

Click here for more information about the show.

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Rocket label feature in December's Rock-a-Rolla

We are excited to announce that there is a label feature on Rocket Recordings in the latest issue of the excellent Rock a Rolla magazine.

They asked us some great questions about the label, our history, influences, most important releases etc and is a nice companion piece to the other recent interview we did for Optical Sounds magazine

Click here for or more information or to order your copy of Rock a Rolla

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The Watcher - The Cult Of Dom Keller

The Watcher

The Cult Of Dom Keller

In this day and age when there seems to be more than a few bands that worship Spacemen 3/ (((Loop))) that come out sounding way to sanitised for my taste thank the lord for these acid fried mothers that go by the name of The Cult Of Dom Keller. Listening to there collection of self released 3 EP's may induce an acid flashback as exploding colour, fuzz and reverb flood from the speakers as The Cult Of Dom Keller beam into the outer limits of your brain with beautiful dirges of bone shaking intensity. Dom Keller have been on the go for a few years now but as this band have developed into a killer psych outfit par excellence it seems at last people are starting to take notice. All we need now is for some label to do the right and proper thing and get these freak outs on vinyl - seems that might be happening in the very near future.

Links

cultofdomkeller.bigcartel

THE-CULT-OF-DOM-KELLER

David C (Optical Sounds)

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White Hills: Heads on Fire - Popmatters review

White Hills - Heads on Fire (Popmatters Review)
(Rocket Recordings; US: 8 Nov 2011; UK: 24 Oct 2011)

By Craig Hayes 9 December 2011

Supernova delights guaranteed.

Heads on Fire was the second album from space rock overlords White Hills. Long out of print, it’s been recently reissued on CD via the band’s original label, Rocket Recordings. White Hills have since gone on to record a number of acclaimed releases for label Thrill Jockey—all of which are well worth listening to—but Heads on Fire takes us back to when the band was taking its first steps into the chimerical void.

Drifting along a cosmically inclined spectrum of Kraut, space, psych and fuzzed out, reverb-heavy rock, White Hills are ardent peddlers of sublimely extraterrestrial wares. Beginning with the swirling synth and rolling, buzzing riffs of “Radiate”, Heads on Fire moves from one frenzied, corkscrewing solo to the next, with accompanying flourishes of exuberant percussion, thumping bass and beautifully warped keyboards. With a focus on the heavier, grittier aspects of space rock, White Hills toss out some thoroughly wicked and no doubt illicitly-inspired jams. “Ocean of Sounds” resonates with chanted vocal lines and huge, raw riffs. “Visions of the Past, Present and Future” is pure psychotropic madness, smothered in corpulent dollops of Hawkwind-like instability, and the 26-minute “Don’t Be Afraid” works its way towards its constellational climax with passages of twirling ambience and plenty of wah-wah lunacy. It’s a supernova delight, to say the least, and it’s gloriously hypnotic.

If you’re a fan of Wooden Shjips, Nebula, Cave, OM or Gnod you’d do well to check this out, although I’m guessing you already have. For the uninitiated, Heads on Fire is the perfect place to begin your journey into the endless galaxies of psychedelic rock.

Read & listen white-hills-heads-on-fire

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