Rocket Recordings

Ahead of Goat's performance at ATP on Sunday and their sold out show at Koko on Monday, BBC6Music's Tom Ravenscroft has invited Goat to come up with a playlist of music to play on his show this Friday.

So, tune into BBC6Music at 7pm and find out what treats they have chosen: Tom Revenscroft

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Lay Llamas launch tumblr

Lay Llamas our favourite band from Italy who appear on our 15th Anniversary Rocket comp has set up a Tumblr site, so go and check it out: Lay Llamas

We have some exciting news about Lay Llamas coming up in the new year so watch this space!!

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27 Nov 2013

Terrascope reviews 'Crystallized – Celebrating 15 years of Rocket Recordings' LP

The ever great Terrascope have written some nice words about our Anniversary compilation:

CRYSTALLIZED - 15 YEARS OF ROCKET RECORDINGS

Not for the faint hearted, to set foot the world of Rocket Recordings requires a willingness to explore realms of challenging and often quite threatening music. While you can listen to some bands and see immediately that despite the bombast, their tongues are firmly planted in their cheeks, with many of Rocket’s artists – and I take Sheffield’s Blood Sport purely as an example without meaning to pick on them – you get the impression that like the Edgar Broughton Band back in the day, they actually fucking mean it, man.

Within every challenge lies a reward however, and as so often the key to unl

ocking it is to take your time. And ‘Crystallized’, a compilation celebration15 years of Rocket Recordings, rewards time invested in spades. Sensibly to my mind the label has used the opportunity of celebrating 15 years in the business to look forward rather than backwards, so don’t turn up looking for obscure Heads B-sides or magazine inserts from long ago. Well, OK maybe just the one: Rollbars was a short-lived 2001 project which featured a Head or two. Primarily though, the label mixes up established Rocket favourites with some newer and lesser known bands, my favourite of which are Italy’s Lay Llamas with their looping Kraut-groove ‘African Spacecraft’. It’s down to some very familiar names to followers of the Terrascope to wrap up the parcel and deliver a package filled with goodies though: Teeth of the Sea go off-piste with a fabulous opening blast of controlled noise, the mighty Gnod blow our minds with some looped psychedelic clubbage, Anthroprophh, which features Paul Allen from The Heads, backed up with fellow Bristolian’s The Big Naturals; and (my favourite of all) Sweden’s Hills blow away the cobwebs with a near perfect slice of fuzz-laden psych rock chanting that builds and builds to a guitar solo that’ll melt your hi-fi. Fabulous stuff. (Phil McMullen)

Visit the great Terrascope here: Terrascope

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Win a Goat – Live Ballroom Ritual 2xLP and CD

The people at Songkick (the promoters who are putting on the Goat Koko show with ATP have announced a competition where one lucky person can win a ltd green and white splatter Goat – Live Ballroom Ritual double LP and the CD version.

To find out how to win, visit this page: Songkick competition

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26 Nov 2013

Stonegoat/Dreambuilding in Norman's top 10 tracks of the year

After Anthroprophh being announced in Normans top 30 albums of the year, Goat's Stonegoat/Dreambuiling has made Normans top 10 singles of the year.

This is what they said about it:

Oh, hello! I’m sure Goat need no introduction by now since the blogs and broadsheets alike are in thrall to their unique blend of classic psych rock and African rhythms, bursting onto the scene fully-formed with killer LP ‘World Music’ last year. After a select handful of ritualistic shows which saw the band performing in golden masks in a breathless voodoo carnival which really has to be seen to be believed, they’re back with another single on Rocket Recordings with two brand new tracks, ‘Stonegoat’ and ‘Dreambuilding’.

It’s pretty much business as usual here, with the recordings perhaps not quite as good as the debut LP but the songs easily shining through with the usual bold melodies, clever and danceable rhythms, simple fuzzy basslines and hollered dual vocals all present and correct. Side A’s got a great wibbly guitar solo at the end over a persistent tropical shuffle, and the slightly slower B side sees them flip into some brilliantly hypnotic Funkadelic-meets-Afrobeat jamming towards the end with some brazen super-saturated guitar topping off the mix nicely. To be honest I’d like to see them make some deeper and longer excursions into this jammier territory, and I’m hoping this single is a primer for a second album which does just that, but for now let’s just enjoy a band on a golden streak kicking out some casually grooving and totally unique rock music like they were born to do it.

See the full top 50 singles of the year here: Normans

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25 Nov 2013

Ltd edition Goat posters available at sold out Koko show in London

Poster artist Adam Pobiak has done it again and created a beautiful poster for Goat's forthcoming London show at Koko.

Adam also did a poster for Goat's last London show at Electric Ballroom that quickly sold out (see here), so this is a nice companion piece.

There will be only 35 for sale on the night, however Adam will be selling some from his own site after the the show has happened.

You can purchase after 2nd December from: Adam Pobiak also visit Adam Pobiak Facebook.

It was announced today that the Koko show has sold out so it looks like it is going to be another Goat show not to forget!!

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Anthroprophh features in Norman Records Top 50 2013

The fine people at Norman Records have selected Anthroprophh debt album released at the beginning of the year to be in their Top 50 of 2013, the record features at number 25.

This is what the shop staff had to say about the record at the time:

I know from our sales figures that a lot of you are already pretty into cult UK psych titans The Heads, so you probably don’t need me to tell you that Anthroprophh is the alter-ego of their visionary songwriter and axe-mangler Paul Allen, who here dishes out six lengthy tracks of krautrock-infused psychedelia which ranges from hard-riffing psych fuzz to burbling ritualistic mysticism like a trippy modern take on the Hawkwind and Can traditions which seem to be all the rage at the moment.

In fact the out-there twiddlings on ‘Precession’ very much remind me of Michael Karoli, before things head in a bit of Popol Vuh direction and things get real trippy, continuing the synth ritual feel into the second side with ‘Ende’ and ‘Entropy’ also both heading deep into this hypno-synth-raga psych choogle wilderness to intoxicating effect, sometimes heading into krautrock steeped in the free-bong landscapes of Expo 70 and Sun Araw and striped with neon guitar shapes. Then things go a bit spacekraut again on the closer ‘We’ which is like Sylvester Anfang II gently covering ‘Black To Comm’ by the MC5 in an opium den. What are you waiting for? It’s time to smoke up and drift away.

See Norman Records complete Top 50 list here Normans

Watch out for Anthroprophh’s 2nd album in the pipeline for 2014 where he will be joined by the guys from the Big Naturals. Expect a lot of Fuzz and Wah attack set to stun!

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19 Nov 2013

Goat Live Ballroom Ritual – first review

Backseat Mafia have reviewed the our Goat Live Ballroom Ritual album that is released on 2nd December:

"Goat were one of the biggest “breakthrough acts” of 2012. Their album ‘World Music’ was met to critical acclaim and the mysterious Swedish group quickly gathered a cult following. They played two sets at Glastonbury, which quickly became accepted as surprise highlights of the weekend. Rumours flew around the blogosphere; their live show is some sort of ritual, all of the band members wear pagan masks, joss sticks are burnt, there may or may not be a live sacrifice. The only definite is that Goat’s live show is some sort of spectacle. So a live album would make sense. Wouldn’t it?

The live album is an add concept. On the one hand, it’s a sure-fire way to capture a band’s energy and chemistry. When a band plays live, they really up their game, knowing that there is a crowd of devoted fans eagerly waiting to be blown away. Thus, recording a live album is surely the only way to capture a band at their best.

That said, there is something about witnessing a band create music that just cannot be captured on record. Being in the same room as the artist and watching the piece of art come to life is magical; it can act as a “way in” to new music, or open up new levels of understanding and appreciation of the music. It is why, for instance, that in an age where you can download almost any album for next to nothing, people continue to pay to go and see their favourite musicians.

It is for this reason that I was sceptical of a live Goat record. I loved their album when it was released, and saw them perform at Supersonic Festival shortly afterwards. The show was brilliant – fun, intense, compelling and freaky. Dancers, lasers, elaborate costumes and burning incenses were surely what made the performance so spectacular! Clearly, these are all things impossible to capture on a live album, so surely the record would not work as anything more than a money-spinner.

True, the costumes, lights, and other visual feats did add a lot of fun to the performance, but the real excitement was the music. The band transformed their album for the live environment; locking into extended instrumental sections, screaming vocals, satanic tabla beats and guitar wig-outs. Energy was turned up way past eleven. It is this aspect of the performance that is captured on ‘Live Ballroom Ritual’…."

Read the rest of the review here: Backseat Mafia

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Loop return

Under the name of Soundheads, Loop returned to the stage after a 23 year absence and it was great to see them back!!

The importance of Loop on the influence on Rocket has been a constant thread since our inception.

So, if you get a chance to see them do, as by all accounts it will be a short lived reunion.

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