Rocket Probes – May 2021 playlist

The Holy Family – St Anthony's Fire
(Second single to be revealed from their debut album electronic fuzz-fueled kosmische folk...with accompanying video by John O'Carroll)
The Holy Family

Various – Zonned Records Vol.1
(Gnoomes's Zonned Records debut release – a great comp featuring J. Zunz, Midas Rex, Varvara, Kikok, Sasha Piankov, Of Mist, Landing etc etc)
Zonned Records

Smote + Forest Mourning – S/T
(Collab of drones)
Smote + Forest Mourning

Græns – Björkarnas Sus
(Kaleidoscopic jazz sounds from Sweden)
Græns

Heimat – Ita
(Noise-pop repetitions)
Heimat

Yoko Ono – Woman Power
(Do you know that one day you lost your way, man?)
Yoko Ono

Acid Twilight – Acid Twilight
(Argentinian devotional psychedelia on Not Not Fun)
Acid Twilight 

Mustard – Good Time Coming
(Another Cherrystones recommended glam banger)
Mustard 

Tara Clerkin Trio – Retro Cranial Kit
(The great Tara Clerkin Trio album remixed)
Tara Clerkin Trio

Skeleton – Skeleton
(Texan Thrash...courtesy of Head Drop's Kev Wells)
Skeleton

Action 13 – More bread (to the people)
(Nigerian psych groove from '73)
Action 13

Domovoyd – Oh Sensibility
(Hazed-out doom) 
Domovoyd

Francis Beby – Psychedelic Sanza (1982-1984)
(Eclectic collection of Beby grooves)
Francis Beby 

Seefeel – Rupt and Flex (1994 - 96)
(Lots of great stuff to immerse into)
Seefeel

Seefeel – Plainsong (Sind Bubble Embossed Dub)
(All the recent reissues made us dig this classic 12" back out...one of the all time faves!)
Seefeel

Lower Slaughter – Some things take work
(Reconnecting with this great album)
Lower Slaughter

The Byrds – C.T.A.102
(Signals tell us...)
The Byrds

Fire! – Defeat
(More greatness from Fire!)
Fire!

Alice Coltrane – Eternity
(Harmonic convergence)
Alice Coltrane

The Jimmy Cake – Tough Love
(Cheers to Spud Murphy for turning us on to this great album of dark ambience)
The Jimmy Cake

Gary, Indiana – Alien 3
(Playing Raw Power in August...should be good!)
Gary, Indiana

Dr. John – Black Widow Spider
(Hits the groove)
Dr. John 

Robedoor – Entity undertow
(Sludged sounds)
Robedoor

Trees Speak – Posthuman
(Probably our fave album they have released so far)
Trees Speak

Various – Doing It In Lagos
(A couple of bangers on this comp of early 80s Nigerian disco on Soundway)
Doing It In Lagos

Mandingo – Black Rite
(Classic banger of fuzzed funk to welcome in some sun)
Mandingo 

Follow our updated monthly Spotify playlist here:

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The Sleeping Shaman reviews GNOD's 'Easy to Build, Hard to Destroy'

It reads:

The prolific monarchs of drone sit atop their throne. Nothing if not prolific (they’ve twenty substantial releases on Bandcamp) this addition to Gnod’s menagerie of psychedelic-space-drone-jazz-rock birthlings is surely welcome to old hands and neophytes alike. Rightly billed as ‘the sound of an uncompromising devotion to rapture through noise and repetition’ this collection of the rare, the odd and the unreleased is a worthy addition to Gnod’s impressive discography.

Occasionally, as I’m sure you good people already know, compilations of this type comprise pieces that are unknown, unreleased and unloved for a reason – they should’ve been consigned to the floor of the tape room shortly after birth such is their unloveableness. The chimeric albums that they comprise are disjointed, inconsistent and unsatisfying to all but the fanatical hysteric. What makes Easy To Build… all the more impressive is that, not only is the filling good but the pie is a tasty congruent, one whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

We ease in with the raga infused, percussion driven Elka, a simmering piece of tinkling space drone that takes the listener on a journey through the hypnopompic state experienced as one wakes gently from a beautiful dream. With glockenspiel accompaniment...

Read the rest here:  The Sleeping Shaman

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J. Zunz announce European tour

We are extremely happy to announce that J. Zunz will be heading over to Europe to finally play some shows:

November
24 / UK / Bristol / Rough Trade
25 / UK / London / Werkhaus
26 / UK / Birkenhead / Future Yard
27 / UK / Manchester / The Peer Hat
28 / UK / Newcastle / The Cluny
29 / UK / Todmorden / The Golden Lion
30 / BE / Antwerp / Het Bos

December
1 / DE / Bremen / MS Loretta
2 / DK / Copenaghen / Råhuset
3 / DK / Odense / Pataget
5 / DE / Dresden / Club Debil at Alte Feuerwache
8 / CZ / Prague / Underdogs
9 / HU / Budapest Aurora
10 / AT / Graz / Cafe' Wolf
11 / SLO / Ljubljana / Gromka
12 / IT / Padova / Nadir
13 / IT / Roma / Fanfulla
14 / IT / Bologna / Venue TBA
16 / IT / Busto Arsizio / Circolo Gagarin
17 / IT / Torino / Living Room
18 / FR / Lyon / Le Sonic
19 / DE / Mannheim / Der Mannheim Kult

Her latest album Hibiscus, can be bought on vinyl here: J. Zunz

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Les Oreilles Curieuses reviews DJINN's Transmission

They say:

In the spring of 2019, we got to know Djinn's cosmic and trippy jazz with a first record. The group from Gothenburg has succeeded in establishing their completely hallucinogenic universe which will also be heard with their second album called Transmission.

Here come new compositions where Djinn will therefore combine spiritual jazz, world music and kosmische musik to make an impressive and oh so hypnotic mixture. Transmission opens with a "Sun Ooze" brilliantly synthesizing hypnotic and haunting atmospheres where the quartet favors saxophones and frenzied percussions just like "Creator of Creation" much more energetic. There is no doubt that this musical trip will be completely memorable.

We will just as well dream with the celestial “Nights With Kurupi” as we will have our feet stamped with the frantic looks on “Jaguar” and the experimental “Urm The Mad” in psych-folk-jazz colors. Djinn will move away from the groove to draw much more mystical atmospheres with also the last psychedelic moments that are "Love Divine" and "Orpheus" showing that the Swedish cosmic jazz collective has been able to awaken its spiritual instinct on this relentless second disc. 

Les Oreilles Curieuses

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The Holy Family reveal shroom infused second video – plus announce launch party

The Holy Family have revealed their second single - a haunting, fog-draped voyage of kosmische polyrhythms and psych folk wonder called 'St Anthony's Fire'.

The track is taken from their self-titled debut album which is released on 2 July 2021. Watch the incredible John O'Carroll made video for the track above.

The band have also announced a very special album launch party that with take place on the day of release, 2nd July at The Servants Jazz Quarters in Dalston, London. There will be a full album playback plus a special DJ set from Kavus Torabi and Steve Davis. Things kick off at 7pm and the event is free (poster below) – and rest assured, full COVID safety measures will be in place, following Government guidelines. 

The album is released on ltd edition 2xLP and CD. We have sold out of the frosted clear edition, but there is a grey vinyl version available to preorder from your local record shops now. You can also preorder the ltd edition CD from here: Bandcamp

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The scope of The Holy Family - an auditory Rorschach test across thirteen tracks rich in adventure and intrigue - is boundless. It’s an intrepid voyage through sound-worlds that takes in all manner of incarnations, as spidery zeuhl, oceanic kosmische, blissful pastoral and celluloid-score tension are visited here in search of some greater universal truth. Yet all of these stylistic forays are married with relentless dream logic into one unifying kaleidoscopic vision.

Mercurial and mystical yet charged with primal energy, this is a classic double album as forum for chimerical experimentation - shifting in form and structure every time it travels from the record racks to the stereo, and revealing yet more psychic landscapes with each listen. 

Submit to its spell, and join The Holy Family.

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Gnoomes new label Zonned Records reveals first release

Gnoomes new label Zonned Records have announced their first release - a great compilation featuring lot’s of artists you all know and love...

Listen to the first track to be revealed by Kikok here: Zonned

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Rough Trade in-stores have been rescheduled

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Rough Trade in-stores have been rescheduled for September...

20th – Rough Trade Bristol

21st –  Rough Trade East

22nd –  Rough Trade Nottingham

The band will be playing live and signing records. Contact each shop about details.

Tickets for the bands November/December tour are also on sale via: pigsx7.com

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs interviewed by Signature Brew

Ahead of their Big Foot Festival performance, the band were interviewed by stage sponsors Signature Brew about beer and music.

Read the interview here: Signature Brew

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The Quietus reviews GNOD's 'Easy to Build, Hard to Destroy'

They say:

Issued from the wrong mouth, “diving into the archives” is a term fit to strike fear into the most hardened heart. Take Gene Simmons, whose comically overblown box set, The Vault, was recently angled not so much as a retrospective cash-in as an “experience”. The experience in question? For $50,000, the cow-tongued eejit in question would hand-deliver ten CDs, a Gene Simmons action figure, a book and a medallion to your door. Tragic, really.

Of course, not all chancers are created equal, yet the point remains: archival releases are occasionally misplaced hustle masquerading as revelation. On Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy, Salford cult heroes Gnod couldn’t be less concerned with such half-assed subterfuge. A compilation of obscure and unreleased material from the band’s early years, pressed to vinyl for the first time, it’s a chronicle of dank, cosmic transubstantiation from one of the most outright believable bands around.

Calling a band “restless” can imply a certain aimlessness. In the case of Gnod, whose synapse-searing noise has consistently declined to predict the future, it’s been a deeply intuitive urge to eke out exultation from repetition. Much like Bardo Pond or Acid Mothers Temple at their most peaky, highlights from the band’s catalogue (take ‘Tony’s First Communion'’ or ‘Drop Out’ with White Hills) hauls Pete Kember’s edict of “three chords good, two chords better, one chord best” to the outer confines of autosuggestion. Across eight tripped-out tracks, totalling eighty minutes, Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy cracks light upon just how they’ve gone...

Read the Rest here: The Quietus

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Terrascope review's GNOD's Easy to Build, Hard to Destroy

It reads:

What, already? It seems like only yesterday that we all frothed excitedly about the new outcrop of experimental acts, crudely lumped together as “new psych”. Yet here we are, pouring over a staging- post retrospective befitting one such outfit that has truly weathered the test of time - can it really be fourteen years? Now that’s a double itch we think worth scratching, for Terrascope likes Gnod. Well enough, in fact, to have hosted them on the postage stamp stage at The Moon, Cardiff in 2017, an occasion hijacked by a General Election; almost sunk by a thunderstorm of biblical proportions and memorable for delicious home-made curries, prepped and served in conditions that would have been considered grim even by the standards of WW1 trenches. Still, nobody died and, with a favourable wind, I can still pick up that incendiary performance in my good ear, that’s how indelibly loud it was.

Typically, the now dispersed Islington Mill collective’s idea of a compilation eschews the more obvious cuts with which, let’s face it, fans will already be familiar, and instead homes in on a collection of  obscurities and never-before released material. Trading on repetition and metronomic, perpetual motion, Easy To Build... is neither overtly experimental nor is it possessed, for the most part, of the bludgeoning intensity with which Gnod have often been associated. If not exactly striking a happy medium between the two, it at least glowers warningly both right and left. As befits the band’s early DIY ethic, some of this sounds like it was recorded in someone’s sock drawer in the next street, with the vocals relayed via a cardboard tube attached to a piece of string. No matter, therein lies its period charm and intoxicating atmospheric appeal...

Read the rest here:  Terrascope

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