Rocket Probes – September 2021 playlist

GNOD – Pink Champagne Blues
(Blistering new track from GNOD)
GNOD

Nova Express – Nova Express
(Killer 14min+ of immersion)
Nova Express

Low – Hey What
(Mighty new album)
Low

Sun Forest – Transitions
(Nicola from Julie's Haircut on Golden Ratio Frequencies)
Sun Forest

Zen Mother – Get high now
(Jammin')
Zen Mother

Roxane Métayer – Paroles Cavernicoles
(Droned hymns)
Roxane Métayer

Gong – Master Builder
(Freak out)
Gong

Maurizio Merli – Dancing man
(Texan grooves)
Maurizio Merli

The Bug – Fire
(Sonic excellence)
The Bug 

Purple Image – Purple Image
(Psyched funk)
Purple Image

Tonto's Expanding Head Band – Riversong
(Exploratory electronics from '71)
Tonto's Expanding Head Band

Barış Manço – Mozart
(Turkish fuzz)
Barış Manço

Nordra – Pylon III
(Nice digital drones – reminds of Arrival soundtrack in places)
Nordra

Le Stelle di Mario Schifano ‎– Dedicato A...
(Psyched sounds from '67 Italy)
Le Stelle di Mario Schifano

Oiseaux-Tempête  – AL-'AN ! الآن
(Instrumental sonic jams from France)
Oiseaux-Tempête

Amebix – No Sanctuary
(Crust)
Amebix

Psychedelic Digestion Therapy – Egipcia
(Middle Eastern tinged sounds)
Psychedelic Digestion Therapy

Beak> – Oh know
(New Beak 7")
Beak>

Weather Report – Boogie Woogie Waltz
(Gets the groove on)
Weather Report 

Rien Virgule ‎– Le Couronnement Des Silex
(Rhythmic noises and melodies on Zam Zam)
Rien Virgule

The Trees – Don't You Worry
(Fuzzy freakbeat)
The Trees

Bitch Diesel – Bionic Woman (Jacky Winter Remix)
(Spacey post punk repetitions)
Bitch Diesel

Patrick Cowley – The Jungle Dream
(Kosmische grooves by the master)
Patrick Cowley

Nala Sinephro – Space 8
(Nice astral jazz on Warp)
Nala Sinephro

Ofege – Try And Love
(Nigerian fuzz from'73)
Ofege

Oranssi Pazuzu – Palava Puu
(One of our favourite bands around drops an unreleased track for an Adult Swim compilation)
Oranssi Pazuzu

Listen to and follow our updated monthly Rocket Probes Spotify playlist here:

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Watch Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs play their track 'World Crust' live in Blank Studios

Ahead of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs up-and-coming UK 'Viscerals' Tour the band have dropped this great video of themselves playing their track World Crust live in Blank Studio's where they recorded the album.

The bands tour dates are as follows and the incredible Blom are supporting on all dates, plus a couple of extra guests have been announced as mentioned below. Tickets can be bought from:

http://pigsx7.com

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UK tour 2021 - The 'Viscerals' Tour... Finally:

October 2021
Saturday 23 Stowmarket John Peel Centre for Creative Arts

November 2021
Friday 12 Norwich The Waterfront
Saturday 13 Swansea Sin City
Wednesday 17 Belfast The Belfast Empire Music Hall
Thursday 18 Limerick Dolan's
Saturday 20 Dublin Whelan's
Tuesday 23 Manchester Albert Hall (+ Richard Dawson)
Wednesday 24 Bristol Marble Factory
Thursday 25 Birmingham The Mill
Saturday 27 Brighton Concorde 2
Monday 29 Southampton Engine Rooms
Tuesday 30 London Electric Ballroom

December 2021
Wednesday 1 London Electric Ballroom
Thursday 2 Leeds Stylus
Wednesday 8 Nottingham Rock City (+ Lovely Eggs)
Thursday 9 Edinburgh Summerhall
Friday 10 Glasgow St Luke’s
Saturday 11 Aberdeen The Lemon Tree
Friday 17 Newcastle The Cluny
Saturday 18 Newcastle The Cluny
Sunday 19 Newcastle The Cluny

'Viscerals' can be picked up on LP and CD here: Bandcamp

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Backeat Mafia reveal second Smote video for forthcoming album 'Drommon' – plus announce debut live shows

Newcastle band Smote have just revealed the video for 'Poleyn' – the second track taken from forthcoming album 'Drommon'. 

Originally released as a cassette earlier this year, this expanded vinyl version of 'Drommon' features a longer version of the title track, plus adds two new pieces of music. The track 'Poleyn' is one of these new tracks and you can watch its video made by Sebastien Cao via Backseat Mafia here:

Backseat Mafia

The album is released this Friday, though frustratingly due to the chaos vinyl manufacturing is in at the moment, the ltd edition LP has been delayed and won't be in the shops now until late October early November. Though you can still preorder a copy from your local record shop or via Bandcamp:

Bandcamp

The band have announced the first live dates, starting at the incredible Brave Exhibitions Festival in Newcastle:

Nov 19-21 / Newcastle / Brave Exhibitions Festival  Tickets
Nov 27 / Manchester / The Talleyrand  Tickets

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Summoned from the murkier reaches of the subconscious and summoning a powerful aura of twilight communion, Smote’s ‘Drommon’ is here to intimidate and enchant. The first Rocket release for this enigmatic Newcastle-based entity is no less than a mystically-aligned voyage into abandon and epiphany.

Replete with doom-laden atmospherics and crepuscular intensity, this is an intimidating denouement to return to time and again. Join the ritual, and submit to ‘Drommon’.

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Raven Sings the Blues reviews Smote's Drommon

They say:

Unfurling more psych-folk plumes for 2021, Rocket pairs their excellent Holy Family release from earlier in the year with an expanded issue of Smote’s Drommon. The Newcastle band had put out a digital release earlier in the year which featured the two movements of the title track — a sorcery-scorched twin attack of cinder and smoke that builds to a seething boil. The fogged forms of “pt. 1” encircle the speakers, working repetition into a hypnotic daze. It’s a trance that becomes a possession by the time the thunder of guitars ramps up for the collapse of its conclusion. The second part, also topping the fifteen-minute mark, creeps in with a more sinister itch. A pound of drums beats through, insistent and ominous. A jungle ambience of humidity, danger, and darkness surrounds the song. There’s a very real sense that something ancient and angry is just beyond the reach of mesmerizing swells of drums and guitar. Unlike the first part, it doesn’t explode, and a constant creep of tension sweats out of every measure. If danger lurks, its patient and omnipresent through to the anxious end.

To push the record into a full LP release, Smote add in two additional tracks. What for some bands would feel like padding out the potency of the title tracks, Smote use as an opportunity to build out their world of psychedelic seance. With a bit of curious flute on “Hauberk,” and a churn of guitars that picks up from the opener, the record takes on a touch of prog that deepens the colors of Smote’s cinder n’ smoke aesthetics. “Poleyn” continues the straddle between wooded psych and the citadel of prog, adding in organ ripples to their works, playing with ‘70s colors that dredge up the Swedish undergorund, moving from Bo Hansson to latter day disciples like Sagor and Swing in the process. It’s an excellent first offering for the band as a full-scope LP and lands nicely among the fare at Rocket Recordings, home to more than a few artists who work that alchemy in wondrous ways. 

See the review here: Raven Sings the Blues 

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Carry's New Underground reviews Smote's Drommon

It reads:

On October 1, Rocket Recordings will release the album "Drommon", plus 2 tracks, as a limited edition LP on green and black splattered vinyl in a redesigned sleeve and as a digital download.

The 4-track album starts on side A with "Drommon (Part 1)", in which Smote performs a beautiful song with a not too fast tempo, which has a slightly hypnotic monotonous recurring rhythm, which after a few minutes transitions into an up-tempo piece of psychedelic music with a hypnotic recurring rhythm, where sitting still is not an option, to change in a quiet tempo shortly before the end and end.

This is followed by "Hauberk", a fantastic song, which starts off calmly and after a short while turns into a danceable mix of psychedelic music and folk and contains a recurring rhythm. (listen to this song via the bandcamp link below the review)

In "Poleyn", Smote allows me to enjoy a delightfully psychedelic song in a medium tempo, which contains strong influences of the music of an early Pink Floyd, with which the band takes me into higher spheres.

Finally, "Drommon (Part 2)", a great song with a fairly easy tempo and a recurring rhythm with mystical Eastern influences, which provides a hypnotic effect... 

Read the rest here: Carry's New Underground

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Terrascope reviews Smote's Drommon

It reads:

Not to be confused with the Slovakian musician of the same name or for that matter The Smoke, Smokey, Smog, or indeed Smudge, whose punsomely titled career-spanning slacker-classic  This Smudge Is True is likely to excite one or two ‘Scopic scribes, if only for the title. No, Smote is Daniel Foggin from England’s North East, described in the press blurb as an “enigmatic Newcastle-based entity”. So, not Jimmy Nail either, then. Drommon is his debut for perennial good guys, Rocket Recordings, and a second outing of 2021 following Bodkin, which was covered with no little enthusiasm on the ‘ol virtual velum back in March.

Now I remember enough from my youthful studies to know that a Dromon (one “m”) was a galley ship. Well maybe that isn’t what Foggin had in mind here but, nevertheless, there is an interesting correlation between the hypothesis as presented and what emanates from the two-part title track that bookend the proceedings. ‘Part 1’ leads with an arresting drone, one that we might once have associated with icy Nordic blasts prior to The Great Melt (deniers look away now). It soon succumbs to trademark Rocket tribal thumping, and to think that Smote isn’t even Swedish. Still, why change a tried, tested and for the most part winning formula? Vigorous, mesmeric and trancelike, it pummels remorselessly before subsiding to the sound of sloshing water. Besides not being especially kind to an ageing bladder, it nonetheless provides a perfectly pleasant coda and one that fits well with the imagined nautical theme...

Read the rest here: Terrascope

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9/10 review of Smote's Drommon by Backseat Mafia

It reads:

Newcastle has been a veritable hub for a wide spectrum of psych and noise, from the raw trio of Blóm to the relentless clamour of Pigs x7; the same city’s Smote offers a different, but similarly singular, vision of psych.

Drommon comprises the previously released titular, two-parter, bookending new material ‘Hauberk’ and ‘Poleyn’; a more cohesive offering to the psych-folk Gods than the eclectic Bodkin.

The album centres around – and draws upon the greatest exponents of – repetition: revelling in Sweden’s greatest cyclical conjurers and the malevolent alchemy of Sunburned Hand of the Men equally. Smote also marks their own firebrand form of repetition with traces of NEU! and a sinuous, Swans (circa 2012) style unravelling – as on the epic opener – that swiftly entombs the listener in it’s ever-shfting psych chasm. Said opener, through the surreptitious woodland ephemera and the overwhelming churn of monotony-leaning instrumentation, builds a panoramic, Tolkien-esque musical environment sustained consistently – though subtly – throughout.

An abundance of Fripp-y flourishes on ‘Drommon Pt.1’ and ‘Hauberk’ bleed effortlessly into the krautrock, space-y organ skyline and hammering percussion of ‘Poleyn’, demonstrating the apparent ease with which Smote combine elements throughout the album, without stepping beyond the realms of palatability...

Read the rest of the review here: Backseat Mafia

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Watch Teeth of the Sea's full Raw Power Festival 2021 performance

Watch Teeth of the Sea return to the stage in full at this years Raw Power Festival.

The bands latest and long sold-out LP, 'WRAITH' has just been reissued on Green and Black vinyl editions. Buy from here: Bandcamp

The band are heading out on a UK tour with The Utopia Strong and three Scandinavia dates with Hey Colossus in November:

Nov 13 / Manchester / The Carlton Club
Nov 14 / York / The Crescent
Nov 15 / Barrow In Furness / Barrow Underground Music Society
Nov 16 / Newcastle / The Cluny
Nov 17 / Glasgow / Broadcast
Nov 18 / Bristol / Strange Brew
Nov 19 / Cambridge / Mash
Nov 20 / London / Lexington (MATINEE AND EVENING SHOW)
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Nov 25 / DE  / Copenhagen / Lopen
Nov 26 / NO  / Oslo / Bla
Nov 27 / DE  / Aalborg / 1000FRYD

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs to play Berlin Desert Festival

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs to play Berlin Desert Festival on 26-29 May.

Info and tickets can be found here: Desertfest

And don't forget, the band have these dates coming-up:

Nov 12 / Norwich / The Waterfront
Nov 13 / Swansea / Sin City
Nov 17 / Belfast  / The Empire Music Hall
Nov 18 / Limerick / Dolans
Nov 19 / Cork / Kino
Nov 20 / Dublin / Whelan's
Nov 23 / Manchester  / Albert Hall
Nov 24 / Bristol / Motion
Nov 25 / Birmingham / The Mill
Nov 27 / Brighton / Concorde 2 – SOLD OUT
Nov 29 / Southampton / Engine Rooms
Nov 30 / London  / Electric Ballroom – SOLD OUT
Dec 1 / London / Electric Ballroom
Dec 2 / Leeds  / Stylus
Dec 8 / Nottingham  / Rock City
Dec 9 / Edinburgh / Summerhall
Dec 10 / Glasgow  / St Luke's
Dec 11 / Aberdeen / The Lemon Tree
Dec 17 / Newcastle Upon-Tyne / The Cluny – SOLD OUT
Dec 18 / Newcastle Upon-Tyne / The Cluny – SOLD OUT
Dec 19 / Newcastle Upon-Tyne / The Cluny

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The Utopia Strong to support Magma

The Utopia Strong have been announced as the support for French legends Magma:

17th & 18 June / The Garage / London Tickets

19th June / Band on the wall / Manchester Tickets

Utopia Strong's S/T debut album has just been reissued on ltd edition yellow and black vinyl editions, buy from here: Bandcamp

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