Rocket Probes August Playlist

Big Naturals - Big Naturals
(Debut self released album from Big Nats, well worth picking up a copy)

Salems Pot - Sweeden
(Ultra spacey, ultra heavy, hypnotic doom from Sweden that we are loving here at Mission Control...and you can love it too: salemspot

Eno & Byrne - Bush of Ghosts (Demos)
(Some different versions of this weirdo kraut disco classic)

Walter Razzati - 1990 Bronx Warriors Soundtrack
(Cheesy 80's 'Warriors' meets 'Escape from New York' meets 'Mad Max' movie soundtrack, but some great 'Goblin' and 'Teeth of the Sea' moments hidden away in there)

Can - Future Days Live
(The band in full swing live in Koln 1973)

Spacemen 3 / Sun Araw - split 7
(Great 7" on the great pop supplement label...a must have!!)

Gnod - 5th Sun
(We mentioned these great tracks on a previous playlist, but nice to have the finished Trensmat 7" of it in our hands and on the deck!!)

Hildur Guðnadóttir - Leyfdu Ljosinu
(Intense absorbing Icelandic cellist drones)

Fairhorns - Doki Doki Run
(Nice krauty, droney, noisey spacescapes on this new album by Matt from Beak>, Team Brick etc)

QMXLX - Tlentifini Maarhaysu
(Another from Matt from Beak>, this time his slide into the world of heavy psychedelia)

We Are Camera - Ausland
(Neu type vibes courtesy of Dave C's Optical Sounds recommendation)

Damon - Songs of Gypsy
(Snake charming biblical Fuzz)

Faust - IV
(From the classic opener to the less experimental side of Faust, loving this album all over again especially the pop based tracks with splashes of electronica)

Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
(Wish there was more of this type of music in the world......oh wait there is; GOAT, ha! Rocket finally get the world dancing again)

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Line of the Best Fit gives their verdict on the Goat album

Line of the Best Fit have published a nice review of the Goat album, it says:

"For large chunks of the year, the far north of Sweden is enveloped in virtually ceaseless darkness and permafrost temperatures. As such, it’s not surprising that Goat – who although currently residing in the far less arctic Gothenburg, have their roots in the tiny village of Korpilombolo (population 529) in the Swedish part of Lapland – have opted to seek respite from the endless winter by bingeing on sounds from various exotic locations.

The band’s imagination appears to have been pushed to extremes and beyond in the remoteness of Korpilombolo, too: World Music arrives laden with one of the most outlandish backstories you could hope to encounter. Goat reckon that Korpilombolo was once visited by a voodoo priest, attracted to trek to this remote spot on the map by no less than a celestial vision. Understandably starved of entertainment, locals went wild for the visitor’s unholy teachings, which didn’t please the Christian church one bit: the voodoo disciples were expelled, and a curse, active to this day, was placed on the village.

Unlikely, you say? So it may be, but the most potent parts of World Music hint that the band’s gritty, subterranean grooves have been spiked by the kind of sensory-warping supernatural ingredient that might have been used to add hypnotic prowess to shamanistic campfire rituals back in the olden days, even if Goat’s brand of voodoo is too occupied with conjuring good vibes to place long-distance calls to the land of the dead.

World Music is an apt title for the band’s debut. The album embarks on a musical round-the-world trip that centres on a fruitful alliance between the trance-inducing rhythmic exuberance of afrobeat and the more primitive ends of psych-rock, as perfected by The Stooges circa 1970, with various added elements – the “motorik” repetition of krautrock, humid swamp funk fashioned in the traditions of New Orleans, woodland-trekking freak-folk, assorted other esoteric strands – added to the dense, restlessly bubbling freak-beat broth. There’s certainly no shortage of bands drawing from these once hopelessly obscure sources that have recently become a lot more accessible due to the pioneering work of such reissue labels as Light in the Attic, Soundway and Now-Again, but Goat wield a couple of aces to propel them a few steps ahead of the competition.

Throughout World Music, there are subtle nods towards the set texts of Classic Rock. The title of the loose-limbed funk-rock of ‘Let It Bleed’ – complete with Fun House sax skronk – is a throwback to the peak era of the Rolling Stones, whilst the hushed acoustic coda to the epic Hendrixian freak-out ‘Goatlord’ – a rare spot of calm on an otherwise energetic outing – inches close to the chord sequence of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s perennial ‘Freebird’. This is telling: whereas many of their esoterically-orientated colleagues stick to hook-averse noodling, Goat have a keen interest in actually putting together some killer tunes, ensuring that the likes of ‘Goatman’ – a clattering, ominous chant that understandably won the band plentiful blogosphere acclaim when it was put out as a 7’’ – and ‘Run to Your Mama’ (imagine Bo Diddley straddling a Far Eastern beat) attach themselves to the listener’s memory shelves with a generous layer of superglue. Goat also manage to mould a bewildering array of influences into an easily identifiable sound, meaning that the odd complaint – it would’ve been nice to have a bit more of the exploratory spirit unveiled on the majestic, sprawling-yet-tight closing instrumental ‘Det som aldrig förändras’, for example – is easy to overlook." JANNE OINONEN - 8/10

You can read the full review here

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GNOD Groove Back Into Europe!

GNOD are ready to head back out on the road next week to get their groove on with their family on the continent, THEY cannot wait, got some new sounds to peddle!

Then some nice shows in UK with Expo 70, Goat & Teeth of the Sea and to finish off a hectic 6 months another trip to Ireland to the lovely Hunters Moon in October.

More Please……

Gnod Bless

29th August - A/N/D Festival - First St, Manchester
1st September - Chaudelande Festival, Normandy, France
4th September - A La Miroiterie, Paris
5th September - Le Water Moulin, Tournai
6th September - L’Aquilone, Liege
7th September - Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels, Belgium
8th September - Private show TBA
11th September - Gent TBA
12th September- Antwerp TBC
13th September - Cab03, Leiden, Holland
14th September - Incubate Festival, Tilburg, Holland
20th September - w/ Expo70 - Night & Day, Manchester
23rd September - w/ Expo70 - Mello Mello, Liverpool
19th October - w/ Goat & Teeth Of The Sea - The Lexington, London

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Only a handful of tickets left for October's Rocket party featuring Gnod, Teeth of the Sea and Goat

As of the time of posting this, there are only 31 tickets left to buy for this show.

So if you were wanting to get a ticket, avoid disappointment and buy yours ASAP before it sells out.

Buy your tickets here

It is looking like it is going to be a great night, a bit of an early 15th Anniversary birthday party for Rocket.

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High Wolf plays London show

High Wolf is playing a rare London show (his only one of 2012) next Saturday at the great venue 'Others' in Stoke Newington.

Rocket released an album by High Wolf's alter ego Annapurna Illusion called 'Life's an Illusion' last year and can highly recommend you seeing his High Wolf show.

You can find more details about the show here and tickets can be purchased here

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Anthroprophh to play Un-Peeled festival

Anthroprophh, the solo project by Paul Allen from The Heads is playing the Un-Peeled Festival in Manchester on Saturday October 27th.

Big Naturals will be joining Paul as his backing band, so expect some very heavy versions of tracks that will be appearing out on the self titled Anthroprophh debut LP released on Rocket in January 2013.

What this space for more info on the album.

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Goat get Stool Pigeon'd

Goat have just had another interview published, this time in the free magazine Stool Pigeon.

You can read more about their Swedish voodoo psyche here

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Gnod play live soundtrack to short film at A/N/D festival

This has just been announced from Gnodland:

Gnod @ A/N/D Festival 29th August

We are happy to announce we will be soundtracking an excellent short film called MET STATE on wednesday 29th Aug at the opening of the Empire Drive in at A/N/D in Manchester City Centre between 8:30-9:30

MORE DETAILS HERE:

http://www.andfestival.org.uk/events/empire-drive-in/

&

http://www.andfestival.org.uk/venues/qpark/

A lo tof great work being done on the drive in cinema, well worth a gander.

Check out A/N/D at: http://www.andfestival.org.uk/events/

Gnod Bless

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Don't forget, Gnod's split Collisions LP with Shit and Shine is launched by Rocket in October. More info here

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The Quietus interviews Goat

The Quietus has interviewed Goat about their Voodoo psyche...have a read of it here

Also...

For what it is worth MSN has made World Music it's album of the week, you can read their great review of the album here

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Aunty digs the Goat

BBC Music website have given Goat's World Music a nice little review:

Surrender your mind, body and soul to the Goat…

Close your eyes while World Music spins and it’s easy enough to piece together a scene for yourself. Think ritual drumming; the soft, rhythmic thump of unclad feet; ancient rites chanted in an unfamiliar tongue and rapt faces lit by the flicker of ceremonial fires while condensation drips lazily from jade-green palm fronds.

Where, now, do you think you might find yourself? Haiti? New Orleans? Saint Sebastian? Matool? Nope, instead all this voodoo-inspired wonder hails from decidedly un-tropical Sweden, courtesy of mischievous newcomers Goat.

While they might be many miles from William Seabrook’s Magic Island and their shtick – which includes an ancient curse and one member claiming he’s the 11th son of a voodoo priest – requires more than a pinch of salt to get onboard with, there’s at least one pivotal factor that certainly doesn’t fail to convince and that’s the music itself.

Channelling a more joyous energy than many others might if given the same source material (Fabio Frizzi or Steve Moore, say), Goat’s music is enigmatic and fittingly potent given the religion they’ve used as inspiration. Startling and possessed with a steady grasp of how different elements can gel and offset each other, the vertiginous mix means they’re perhaps the only band on the planet who can simultaneously bring to mind Can, Fela Kuti, Liquid Liquid and Moby Grape.

Basslines hulk and lurk, goading you pushily towards the dancefloor while psychotropic guitar parts conjure impossible colours and chanted, voice-as-instrument ululations score a deep path through your subconscious despite only one word in 50 ever actually making sense. Dip in at any point and you’re bound to hit gold, whether you light upon the cartwheel riffing of opener Diarabi, the glorious, organ-dappled funk of Disco Fever or the primal rattle and grunt of the beautiful but far-too-short Run to Your Mama.

You’ll soon find, however, that being a casual bystander simply isn’t an option: it’s all too captivating, too delirious and too gosh-darn wonderful for you not to join the fray. So surrender your mind, body and soul to the Goat and one of the year’s best albums so far.

Alex Deller 2012-08-22

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