In William Blake’s Jerusalem, he argues that imagination itself is “The real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow” – it seems Antoni Maiovvi, would agree. Especially given that Ye Gods, his latest and most monolithic project to date, arrived directly from a dream. In this dream, Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke took him to task for easing off on his longtime study of hermetic ritual magick, and instructed him to atone by making a record under the name Ye Gods. Convinced this path was the correct one, he was duty bound to comply.And sure enough, the Ye Gods project began to evolve and metamorphosise, until this vehicle for ‘Occult Devotional Electronics’, became a beast capable of delivering ‘Los’ the towering and transformative new album for Rocket Recordings. Rich with texture, emotive songcraft and cinematic atmosphere across three expansive tracks, it’s a work that breaks new ground for this intrepid polymath. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Wishful Thinking
2. Outlier 
3. Handmaiden 

Two decades have passed in the land of Gnod, yet the psychic travelogue only becomes more enthralling as it goes on. And whilst this band has flourished via dauntless conviction, hive-mind magic and a fierce and uncompromising spirit, one ingredient has served as a crucial fuel for the fire – the monolithic singularity of the riff. 


This second chapter of Gnod’s sort-of-anniversary trilogy also originates in the same six day sessions as the first, at Hellfire Studios near Dublin with producer Spud Murphy (Lankum, Black Midi etc). Yet the focus this time is on the transcendental heaviness and repetition that the band have often used as a primary fulcrum of their approach. This volume captures the sound of strings flayed, throats shredded, skins punished by the organic chemistry of this formidably powerful band in a room.

The results are amongst the most fearsome and kinetic material that Gnod have summoned to date. As has often been the case for a band heavily driven by serendipity and intuition, the best plan is no plan at all. “We find quite regularly that spontaneity and the no thought approach works better than over analysis and detailed planning” clarifies the band's Chris Haslam

Maximal yet minimal, claustrophobic yet expansive, free in approach yet mercilessly disciplined in their intensity – Gnod like every truly great band are a mass of contradictions. On 'Chronicles Of Gnowt (Vol 2)', this thunderous paradox has never sounded fiercer. To paraphrase Nietzsche: “Is man merely a mistake of Gnod's? Or Gnod merely a mistake of man?”

TRACK LISTING

1. The Witness
2. Ice Man
3. Travellers Return
4. Old Gold
5. Strangled

The word ‘Tystnad’ – literally translated – means silence. In this case, the Silence is less that of zen buddhism or that of John Cage, rather the name of the studio where Flowers Must Die – carriers of the torch of Swedish psychedelia for now nearly 20 years – retreated to make their most head-expanding album to date. Located near the Norwegian border in the verdant rural Värmland region, Silence Studios has been a countercultural hub for decades, attaining a legendary status as a residential outpost where bands can retreat to stretch out creatively and focus their psychic powers.

From just such origins, Flowers Must Die have crafted a collection of expansive and incandescent jams that maps out a lysergic trajectory between the idealistic, anything-goes mania of early ‘70s psychedelia and the 21st century. 'Tystnad' is the sound of a band buoyed by the afterglow of their last Rocket release, 2017’s 'Kompost' and its attendant touring, and expanding into extrapolations that marry the wildest free improv with haunting melody.

If 'Tystnad', as the band claim, is to be their last recording made in one room at the same time, then it displays a formidable escape velocity. Who’s to say whether Flowers Must Die have tapped into a Swedish continuum, one including the like of Pärson Sound, Dungen or Goat. What’s clear is that 'Tystnad' is a timeless treatise, and a potent channeling of spirits –transcending genre in search of enlightenment anew.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vet ej
2. Raka Vägen För Damo
3. Nåja
4. Mantra
5. Ombudsmän
6. Tystnad
7. Lycka Åt Alla, Och Må Ingen Gå Härifrån Besviken

Originally released in 2021, this is the first vinyl reissue of 'Headsoup' by Goat, a compilation of singles, rarities and previously unreleased tracks. This updated edition features a revised tracklist and, for the first time since its original 7” release, includes the full six-minute version of the hit single 'Let It Burn'.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Sun and Moon
2. Stonegoat
3. Dreambuilding
4. Dig My Grave
5. It's Time For Fun
6. The Snake of Addis Ababa
7. Union Of Mind And Soul
8. Let it Burn
9. Friday Pt.1
10. Fill My Mouth
11. Queen Of The Underground

Confronting 2026, hope can seem in short supply, as the most divisive and toxic voices worldwide are amplified amidst an ever-rising temperature of conflict and alienation, yet hope is abundant in ‘Losey’, the latest release on Rocket Recordings from the mercurial duo Gnoomes.

Just as this couple have taken a bold step into the unknown by leaving Russia and moving to Slovenia, so their music has thrown off all shackles to flourish in a defiant show of vibrant and revivifying colour. “The life of an immigrant is a strange thing.” says the bands Sasha Piankov “But luckily, that glow music brings us has never faded, even though the emotional landscape has definitely shifted.” Yet whilst the music that Sasha and his creative and life partner Masha Piankova came up with is testimony to a liberating triumph against oppression and adversity, it also goes beyond.

What has emerged is a kaleidoscopic collision of styles which sends the ‘skygazing’ realm of their previous work spinning into electronic orbit. Whilst the opener ‘Foreign Agent’ explicitly tackles the pressures of the Russian state, it also throws a Stereolab-style motorik meditation through an in-the-red psychedelic prism. Elsewhere we can behold Bulgakov and Chris and Cosey as bedfellows amidst the mesmeric, 303-fried EBM of ‘Satan’s Ball’.
“Rave as therapy. Pop as resistance. Love as endurance. ADHD as a production technique.” These are the primary ingredients of Losey, by the reckoning of the band themselves. This is an album that exists purely on its own distinct frequency, driven by defiance and positivity. 'Losey' is a soundtrack to set fire to the old order, the better to dance in the glow.

TRACK LISTING

1. Foreign Agent
2. May Night
3. Losey
4. Repeat Repent
5. Shakshuka And Pie
6. Satan’s Ball
7. Crangonyx

When the mysterious masked collective calling themselves Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut album ‘World Music’ – there was, and there still isn’t, anyone else on earth quite like them. With their enticing mythology, music full of sinuous grooves and manic explosions of fuzz, Goat were outliers from the very beginning. ‘World Music’, received an avalanche of acclaim with critics, psych heads, outernational crate diggers etc, all left enraptured by its thunderous intensity, conjured from a singular mix of sounds from across the globe. ‘World Music’ is brimming with tracks now seen as ‘classic’ Goat live favourites. Tracks that have been wowing audiences all over the world; the afrobeat stomp of ‘Disco Fever’, the fuzz abuse of ‘Goathead’, the post-punk groove of ‘Let it Bleed’, the sing-along repetitive pop of ‘Run to your Mama’... From the first note to the last, ‘World Music’ oozes with a sonic confidence rarely seen on a debut album. What Goat have is unique – they’ve managed to create a sound unrestrained by genre or any other boundaries. So, if you haven’t done so already, then it is now time you joined the Goat commune.

TRACK LISTING

1. Diarabi
2. Goatman
3. Goathead
4. Disco Fever
5. Golden Dawn
6. Let It Bleed
7. Run To Your Mama
8. Goatlord
9. Det Som Aldrig Förändras / Diarabi

Obsidian rock is igneous, frequently dark, yet opaque. Hard edged and brittle, it’s often been used both for weaponry and alchemical pursuits. Therefore when Lorena Quintanilla – the Mexican-based artist from the group ‘Lorelle Meets The Obsolete’ and also known as J. Zunz – was searching for psychic inspiration for her next musical venture, she need have looked no further. “Once I chose the title, everything I read, saw, listened to, and thought about began to interconnect” she relates. “Obsidian became like a magnetic field.”



“In Mesoamerican cultures, it was used in many different ways – obsidian mirrors, for example, were tools for divination and spiritual vision". Thereafter, Lorena set about creating an album entirely on her own terms. Driven by both the ghost and the heart of the machine, ‘Obsidiana’ open up a portal whereby forbidding drone, ethereal ambience and insistent repetition intertwine elegantly to form a seamless whole.

A study in balance, its emotional charge remains strong and intact whether on the eerie, almost Radiophonic ambience of ‘Imago’ or the dancefloor-adjacent, Chris & Cosey-esque ‘Osiris’. Lyrically meanwhile, ‘Obsidiana’ intersects deep personal explorations with the conflicts and contradictions of life in the unforgiving realm of 2026 – as Lorena says; “he process behind ‘Obsidiana’ was very abstract, yet I wanted the lyrics to stay grounded in the present and in reality".

Ultimately however, ‘Obsidiana’, in all its sharp yet amorphous glory, is catharsis manifest. “Each song carries a clear and deliberate intention” Lorena emphasises. “To conjure, to exorcise, to strip away fear, to rediscover myself, to heal inherited sadness, and to reclaim the night that was taken from us.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Oscurecer
2. Final (feat. freddie Murphy)
3. Padre
4. Silvia
5. Imago
6. Exorcizo tu voz (feat. freddie Murphy)
7. Osiris
8. Sol
9. Esclarecer

Goat has long been mapping the shape of fuzzed ‘70s sounds culled from far-flung corners of the world, splicing tape-market aesthetics and poly-rhythmic pounce to a deep bench of Swedish psychedelics. This clash of ideas fully came to a head with February’s release of single ‘Nimerudi’, a collaboration track with Kenyan-born, Ugandan-based rapper MC Yallah. Matching the band’s lived-in, lysergic production, Yallah brought her nimble, multi-lingual flow, leaning into the band’s Nordic wrecking crew with an acumen that’s earned her an honor roll of critical praise. Yallah has been building steam since ’99, releasing a litany of singles and two albums with Debmaster on acclaimed Nyege Nyege sublabel Hakuna Kulala, and her elastic phrasing is the perfect fit for the band’s timeless feel. On it’s release the track quickly gained the prestigious BBC 6 Music ‘A’ playlist status, after picking up an unprecedented number of spot plays from many of the stations DJ’s Gilles Peterson, Mark Radcliffe, Huey Morgan, Iggy Pop, Don Letts etc etc etc – everyone couldn’t help to fall under the spell of the Goat/Yallah groove.Now, Rocket Recordings are happy to reveal an EP containing 5 more remixes of the track, following the acid dub of the ‘Salmagundi Remix’ that accompanied the ‘Nimerudi’ original release. The first of the five remixes is from Wayne Adams, the London producer who is one half of Goat’s label mates Petbrick, a duo that pairs Adams with old Sepultura drummer Iggor Cavalera. Wayne’s dark electronic mix teases out the hazy early hours of post rave urban London rather than the golden warmth of the sun soaked life of Uganda. The second remix sees GNOD continue their seismic sonic palette by stripping out the flesh and bones of the original track like the roughness of tiger tongue wrapping around your infinity machine mind – hypnotically grinding as a throbbing electronic sine wave of neurotoxins.Malcolm Catto’s remix is track of two worlds – the world of the living and the world of the spirit – where his burrowing rhythmic intensity summons Can’s deeply cosmic afro-krautrock-funk-psych of ‘Ege Bamyasi’– dappled with its intricate polyrhythms and fuzzy lead guitar signature of Malcolm’s ‘The Heliocentrics’ project. And lastly, the Illusive Bristolian producer Claude Cooper brings the whole release burning full circle with his old skool beats, stylized rhythmic chop-around reworking, embellishing the original with his West Country heavy funky breakbeats and scratching turntablism. The ‘Nimerudi Remix’ EP is released digitally across all streaming platforms on 30 May. There will also be a ltd edition 12” available featuring the original track, plus these four remixes. The 12” will also contain a special bonus Goat track, ‘Seu Sangue’ which has not been released on vinyl before.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nimerudi
2. Nimerudi (Wayne Adams Remix)
3. Nimerudi (Gnod Remix)
4. Nimerudi (Malcolm Catto / The Heliocentrics Remix)
5. Nimerudi (Claude Cooper Remix)
6. San Sangue (vinyl only bonus track)

Transcendence through repetition beamed via an aesthetic vision steeped in mystery: welcome to the world of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s Smote, an entity opening up uncanny new psychic pathways. ‘Genog’ - the outfit’s second release on Rocket Recordings following 2021’s eerie transmission ‘Drommon’ - shows that Smote’s elliptical casting of bleak magick is only growing more powerful as it gathers momentum. The brainchild of Daniel Foggin, Smote has evolved seemingly of its own volition. ”I had the idea for years” he relates, “I love Pärson Sound, Träd, Gräs Och Stenar, Traditional Irish Folk and all sorts of different Drone and Folk music. It was simply finding the opportunity to sit down and get recording. A very heavy influence that affects Smote is fantasy as a genre, and the atmosphere that can be created via story-telling.” The musical approach of Smote may have started out as a resolutely DIY one, yet from the humble origins of bedroom and rehearsal room recordings, the band has now become a full-fledged and powerful live band, whose appearances at festivals like Roadburn, Le Guess Who and Brave Exhibitions have already caused a considerable stir.

The five vivid extrapolations on 'Genog' conjure differing spiritual realms, yet combine and coalesce to offer one unified vision, building furious momentum in a manner that unites the pastoral with the arcane and otherworldy. Earthy, ritualistic and richly cinematic in aspect, 'Genog' is an avatar guiding the listener to dark and beguiling imaginary landscapes.

TRACK LISTING

1.Genog
2.Hlaf
3.Fenhop
4.Lof
5.Banhus

What's the point of the howl of string to speaker, the hammering of stick-on skin? Is it transcendence, elevating the human spirit by catharsis in sound? Or is it summoning chaos, a purgatory in which to bask in all that’s unclean, the better to feel alive?

Why not both? Because that’s what’s on offer on 'Diet Of Worms', the second Rocket release by The Shits, Leeds via Newcastle’s titans of disgust and deliverance. This is a feast for the senses in the worst way possible - primal rock boiled down to its essence and flung full in your face. Using repetition, tortured vocal invective and heads-down intensity as blunt instruments, these eight tracks are an unprecedented torrent of acidic salvation. Whilst lurking somewhere on the decadence-destruction axis between the nihilism of prime Stooges and the bloody blackout of Braimbombs, 'Diet Of Worms' is possessed of a legitimately uncompromising hostility that both elevates and debases it to co-ordinates unknown.

There are revelations here in the riffage and the rancour, even if they are the kind that occur in the bleary miasma of the lock-in, or witnessing the streetlight blur of the subsequent stagger home. Even more single-minded and remorseless than the band’s Rocket debut ‘You’re A Mess’, this is a record that demands full immersion. Whether it’s ‘Then You’re Dead’ hammering on a pulverising garage-stinking riff until it begs for mercy, or ‘Change My Ways’, whose Creedence-In-Hell swagger and lurch is that of abjection transmuted into joy, this is psychedelia forcibly removed from its comfort zone of pastiche, and thrust into a bad-trip realm of the vivid and nightmarish.

But rarely has the process of making beauty and horror indivisible seemed like so much fun. If Werner Herzog was right, and the only harmony in the universe is that of overwhelming and collective murder, then The Shits are the true music of the spheres.

TRACK LISTING

1. In A Hell
2. Tarrare
3. Then You're Dead
4. Change My Ways
5. Joyless Satisfaction
6. Diet Of Worms
7. Thank You For Being A Friend
8. Three O'Clock In The Morning

The life of a psychonaut can take one to many plateaus of reality. Opinions vary as regards which of these are either desirable or optimal. All things considered though, it’s fair to say that once the average cerebral wanderer finds themselves a stoned skeleton on a motorbike, it’s a sign that they’re going places. Such were the movements of The Utopia Strong, in making their third and arguably trippiest full length album for Rocket Recordings. As the band explain: “When recording we tend to have books, bits of art and interesting things lying around the place. (Kavus) had recently bought the Paul Kirchner compendium, Awaiting The Collapse.” Paul’s character ‘Dope Rider’ (the skeleton in question) drives around the desert, getting into all manner of high jinx and spouting cosmic philosophy, highlighting the absurdities of life, death and the American mythos. “When we had created that particular track, one of our most beautiful and outré, it seemed to name itself.” Serendipity has always played a strong role in The Utopia Strong, with the improvisatory approach of Steve Davis, Kavus Torabiand Mike York - as well as the innate chemistry between the trio allowing them to evolve their approach to facilitate the most adventurous exploratory missions possible. In this realm, the band’s formidable history is transcended and usurped by their combined psychic intensity. 'Doperider' does indeed take the band down a variety of auditory pathways previously unexplored, and further into the realms of more surrealistic visions akin to the systems-built bliss of Caterina Barbieri, the unforgiving noisescapes of Hiro Kone or the alien soundtracks of latter-day Laurie Spiegel. Essentially however, the mission of The Utopia Strong remains intact - to offer a transformative pathway to wonders anew. As Steve notes: “Hopefully we’ve done justice to the comic book character Dope Rider and that he’d have loved riding along on his Harley Davison on another quest, with the wind blowing through his rib cage, listening to this album. if the audience choose the psychonaut road, then we are delighted to have been of service”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Love a bit of Utopia Strong, Steve came into the shop one time and we had a nice chat about modular synths like nerds (we had the same oscillator dealer - thanks Matt), and I was pretty excited about their burgeoning music even then. It's come a LONG way, growing in scope and familiarity, and we now get the deepest mix of Bureau B thump and boundary-melting psychedelic rave you ever did hear. A superb, chaotic behemoth.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prophecy
2. Spell Of Seven
3. Moths Of The British Isles
4. The Atavist
5. Unity Of Light
6. Harpies
7. Doperider

The taxidermy parrot had been a constant presence, there on the mantelpiece in Mike Bourne’s childhood home for as long as anyone could remember. No one was quite sure where it had come from – an heirloom? A chance find from an antique shop? All that seemed clear was that over time it had assumed mystical significance, watching calmly over everything that ensued. Following a troubled – and by some accounts haunted – sojourn in a museum, Mike became the ultimate owner of this parrot. There once again it sat, in his room and overlooking his home studio, as he sculpted music that took on unforeseen new dimensions. He pursued these uncanny vibrations right through to the creation of Bruise Blood’s debut 'You Run Through This World Like An Open Razor'.

The consequence is an album very much driven by supernatural forces – spectral influence moving through machine form to summon grandeur and abjection both. Whilst Bourne’s work with Teeth Of The Sea might give dystopian signposts to some, the soundscapes and explorations here – channelling techno, industrial, post-punk, minimalism and beyond – function to sculpt one singular vision. Recorded and mixed by Bourne himself and mastered by Amir Shoat (Dean Blunt, Klein, John T.Gast) it’s an audial realm as redolent of the disorientating world of a Harlan Ellison short story as bathing in the relentless strobe light of a 3AM dancefloor epiphany. Perhaps Bruise Blood’s vibrant, excoriating debut is the sound of humanity moving with slow inevitability towards darker times, alchemically transmuted into cinematic serendipity and beauty. Perhaps it’s merely the inspired work of one man, driven by forces he doesn’t entirely understand.

Perhaps only the parrot - the spirit animal still standing sentinel as we embark on an uncertain new aeon – really knows.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Pressure
2. Cede
3. You're In Control
4. Mindseye
5. Until The Sun Breaks Down
6. Oh But You Can, Oh But You Will
7. You Run Through The World Like An Open Razor
8. Glass Nine

The Irish word Rún can mean secret, mystery, or love, or perhaps some elusive combination of the three, reflecting the many aspects of life that defy easy explanation. In wrestling with these, it can become necessary to commit oneself entirely, to jump in at the deep end in search of the vibrations and feelings at hand. This is where the band Rún comes in.

The debut album of Rún is the result of three powerful artists – Tara Baoth Mooney, Diarmiud MacDiarmada and Rian Trench – locking horns and forming a spiritually intrepid outfit who alchemies experimental methods and improvisatory states to reach intimidating heights of sonic and psychic intensity. An extremely diverse range of musical influences also make their presence felt here, from William Basinski and Pauline Oliveros to Om, Coil and The Necks.

A centrepiece of the album drawn from such is the potent ‘Terror Moon’, on which a thunderous percussive backdrop is matched in intensity by potent chants and mantric ululations from Tara as well a ferocious tumult of layered noise and fevered invective. ‘Your Death My Body’ meanwhile projects exorcising vocal meditations through a musical prism that touches on the lineage of spectral beat-driven atmospherics that connects Portishead and Tara Clerkin Trio.

The stakes are high in the creative realm of Rún, with the record’s ritualistic approach leading it to the territory of the truly elemental and primal. Yet this is a record with the metaphysical firepower to cleanse the spirit even whilst it stares darkness full in the face.

As Ursula Le Guin once said - “In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void” – in the increasingly materialistic and inhospitable realm of 2025, there can be few better companions than Rún to embrace reality and confront this void

TRACK LISTING

1. Paidir Poball (Pupil)
2. Your Death My Body
3. Gutter Snipe
4. Terror Moon
5. Such Is The Kingdom
6. Strike It
7. Caoineadh 

In the world of Pharaoh Overlord, little is ever as it seems. This band is less comprised of tricksters or mischief makers than fearless obsessives whose musical instincts take twisted and wild pathways. Now, fresh from forays into Italo-disco and synth-pop, they have thrown another still more mighty statement of intent into the universe. Louhi is a thunderous and majestic epic of joyful repetition and earth[1]shaking power.

A two-track minimalist-rock monolith forged from guitars, synths and hurdy-gurdy, inspired by the band’s eternal touchstone influence Outside The Dream Syndicate by Tony Conrad and Faust, and constructed around a single riff and melodic idea, it builds and evolves to fearsome pinnacles of elemental intensity.Luminaries and constant compatriots in the Pharaoh Overlord headspace were recruited for this voyage into the ether. Vocalist and longtime collaborator Aaron Turner (SUMAC, Isis, Old Man Gloom)and Tyneside maverick Richard Dawson were equally keen to get on board, the former taking a spontaneous and improvisatory approach to his vocal parts, and the latter largely playing a part consisting of one guitar chord. Yet whatever routes Pharaoh Overlord take to their destination, a common theme is the consciousness-warping singularity of the riff and the mantra, and the temporal disorientation this can provoke mirrors the broader designs of this record, which takes traditional folk elements and transports them in the band’s singular time machine.

“It’s our 25th Anniversary this year, and from time to time we hear wishes that if just we could play more of the stuff that we did twenty or more years ago” relate Jussi and Tomi. “We totally understand this. You could say we used Louhi to reset ourselves to the past, to be able to continue again to the future.” Aaron puts it another way, evoking simplicity in the chaos – “The world of Pharaoh Overlord is a magical one - every album is an invitation to enter that place and rejoice in doing so…”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Thundering, psychedelic drone metal that's both tectonic and emotionally brittle, with pained vocal roars and slowly morphing atmospheres. Proper get-in-the-zone drone.

TRACK LISTING

1. Louhi (Part 1)
2. Louhi (Part 2)

The Isle Of Lewis is the largest such of the Outer Hebrides archipelago, and a place where myth and folklore are abundant, The Callanish Stones, a cruciform circle reckoned by tradition to be the forms of petrified giants who would not convert to Christianity, once prompted notable chronicler of the ancient Julian Cope to pronounce himself “Lashed by wind and rain but surrounded by vibe”. This was where Holy Scum decided to take a pilgrimage for the recording of their second album proper for Rocket Recordings, 'All We Have Is Never'. Frustrated by the physical and logistical challenges keeping the band members from collaborating, they decided the best way forward was at the residential Black Bay Studios on Great Bernera, a two hour plus ferry ride from anywhere. “The isolation of Black Bay was our salvation, a much-needed cleanse after a year of relentless misfortune” reckons the band’s Peter Taylor. Taylor describes the Holy Scum approach jokingly as ‘No riffs’ yet this belies an ability to carve abstraction and minimalism into monolithic and ominous shapes. Whilst the band are as handy as ever with excoriating and ear-splitting experimentation - as on the feverish guitar scree that underpins the taut‘Thieves’ - they also excel in a grittily vital charge as analogous to the ballsy kinetics of Fugazi and The Ex (the primal ‘I Am The Land’) as the overcast catharsis of Killing Joke and Voivod (the infectious ‘Witches’). “The title is a nod to the fact that everything ends - good, bad, ugly, beautiful “ reflects vocalist Mike Mare (Dälek) of their most focused work to date. “That is not a bad thing - it is a rebirth every time. We can spend a lifetime 24/7 together having shared experiences but living separate realities”. “I don’t think it is nihilistic,” he adds. “The despair turns into hope for sure”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waves Of Laughter
2. These Hills
3. Thieves
4. Trying In Hell
5. Liar
6. I Am The Land
7. Witches
8. Just Tell Me How It Ends
9. Twos And Threes
10. Faces
11. Like December

Rocket Recordings’ new Black Hole Series is a place where the unorthodox, otherworldly and esoteric can flourish, and there could be no more fitting first release for it than the most powerful metaphysical travelogue yet from Moundabout. Journeying still further into and beyond the landscapes from which this duo have unearthed inspiration, ‘Goat Skull Table’ is a transmission to give flight to spectral visions and include trance-states in abundance.The vibrations and manifestations of the duo of Paddy Shine(GNOD) and Phil Langero (Los Langeros, Damp Howl, Bisect) has always resonated within a very specific sense of place, transcending linear narratives and astral planes in a quest to unite timeless spirits with inner space. This third release for Rocket Recordings sees them colluding with the landscape of their surroundings, transcending linear narratives and astral planes in a quest to unite timeless spirits with inner space.The title track marks a focal point here; a Shamanic rite on which Langero’s charismatically charged mantras collude with an audial landscape somewhere on the map between the abstract spell-casting of Nurse With Wound and the druidic gnosticism of Julian Cope. This is Moundabout at their darkest and most ritualistic. Elsewhere, the hypnotic repetition of the twin ten-minute extrapolations ‘Blood On My Blanket’ and ‘Wagon’, and the potent incantatory chants of ‘Am I Not’ and ‘Brave New World’ glow with a rugged and charged dynamism redolent of the Swedish Psychedelia of Träd, Gräs & Stenar, uniting a minimal aesthetic with maximal impact. Dauntless, feverish, and reaching new heights of primal intensity ’Goat Skull Table’ is a formidable field guide to the earthen and other.

TRACK LISTING

1 - Goat Skull Table
2 - Brave New World
3 - Am I Not
4 - Blood On My Blanket
5 – Wagon

How does one approach the morning after a party for the end of the world? This is a question which Mamuthones had to ask themselves, in the wake of their last album for Rocket, 2018's 'Fear On The Corner'. Nonetheless, from the aftermath of this uncertain period has risen the still more flourishing realm of 'From Word To Flesh' - a colourful and multi-faceted creation very much befitting the outsider spirit of Rocket's new Black Hole imprint.“I believe that with this album a circle has been closed” reflects Mamuthones mainman Alessio Gastaldello. “We returned to the atmosphere of the first Mamuthones albums with the skills acquired throughout the journey, with new sounds and with new creative processes. I would say that what remains constant – and at the core of our music – is the obsessive rhythms and the search for a sonic rituality: this is for certain our trademark”. This is clear right from the curtain raiser 'Burn From Inside', which beams the emotive approach of the band through the shamanic prism of Coil's 'Ape Of Naples'. From there, hypnotic repetition marries to abstract abrasion and mournful laments with equal finesse, as redolent of the spiritual zest of Popol Vuh and Ash Ra Tempel as the gnostic folk of Six Organs Of Admittance. Elsewhere, 'A Symmetry Of Faith' summons a union of post-punk and psychically charged folk aligned with the recent work of Bristol's Beak. The Sardinian ritual of the Mamuthones – in which sinister masked figures weighed down with cattle bells conduct a ceremonial procession to ward off evil forces - has gone on for some two thousand years, and it may be that these ghoulish avatars are engaged in a celebration of the endless cycles of death and rebirth, fortifying spirits for a new epoch. Amidst the chaos and tumult of the 2020s, the band of this name has undergone just such a change themselves, and ‘From Word To Flesh’ is the fruit of their struggle. As Alessio says “With this album I think the Mamuthones have never been so unmediated, so naked: all masks gone”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Burn From Inside
2. A Cage Full Of Sins
3. Can't Be Done
4. Before You Leave
5. A Symmetry Of Faith
6. Son Of Myself
7. Carry On 

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2025 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

The past year has been one of evolution for Goat. 2024’s eponymous album found the band refining their fuzz, dipping deeper into ‘70s psych-funk, and reconnecting with the sonic sear that’s long been their guiding light. Always consummate collaborators, they capped off 2024 eyeing the future with a 7” single that paired their heat with hip-hop, working with acclaimed Ugandan artist MC Yallah. The bands often used the short format as a springboard for collaboration and experimentation and after singles with Yallah, Al Lover, and Bonnacons of Doom, Goat cues up a double-A doozy that reconnects them with longtime Gothenburg friends Graveyard.

For a new Record Store Day single the bands blend their sounds into a twin toke of sweat and singe. Born out of a history of house jams at Goat HQ, the single unwinds Graveyard’s more meticulous nature. “Ship of Fools” unleashes a tsunami of sound, guitars barreling down on the listener with ill intent. The wave crests and quenches, though, leaning into the soul-soaked direction of Graveyard’s latest album, “6”. Head to head the bands dig towards a stadium sound that’s still slicked with the swagger of the ‘70s, but rolled in more of Graveyard’s grandeur than Goat’s eclectic grit.

The flip side lights up the speakers, less dense than anything either band has hooked into for some time. The jammy approach that inspired the session pays off throughout “Light as a Feather,” soaking up prime-period Stones if they’d aimed for the heart of the sun with Father Yod in the driver’s seat. Sloughing off the shackles of verse/chorus/verse structure, the song picks up mid-ecstatic peak, the listener already in thrall to the groove, simmering in the sway-along harmonies before an acid-butter burner of a solo sends the whole thing rippling out into the cosmos

The fifth album from Newcastle’s riff wizards Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is defined by calculated aggression and self-lacerating lyrics. Its startling bonuses include playful synth work and the appearance of a giant from hip-hop. With its title juxtaposing absurdity and seriousness, this is 'Death Hilarious'.

Whereas 2023’s 'Land Of Sleeper' was conceived as an immersive headphones experience, this time Pigs strove for something more directly hostile. “We wanted it to be a slap in the face,” grins producer and guitarist Sam Grant. That objective came, in part, from playing so many gigs over the last couple of years. The band felt well-oiled and ripe to give listeners at home the kind of pummelling their audiences receive.

'Death Hilarious' does bring in some big surprises, particularly the track ‘Glib Tongued’, which has guest bars by El-P from Run The Jewels. When bassist John-Michael Hedley unwittingly wrote what his bandmates considered their equivalent of a hip-hop number, Pigs set their sights high and secured a blistering contribution from one of the world’s greatest rappers. That’s not to say Pigs have pivoted to nu-metal. 'Death Hilarious' is a diversely punishing record which shapeshifts through Sabbathian doom, grotesquely minimalist noise rock and cyclical post-metal fortissimos. Pigs continue to push themselves, too. Incongruous synthesiser solos appear where guitar histrionics would usually fit. Piano tracks lurk in the mix, adding near-subliminal depth to the maelstrom. ‘Stitches’ is like Motörhead trying to perform glam rock with a tipsy keyboardist. Then there’s the 100mph pace of cosmic-thrash opener ‘Blockage’. Distorted licks flying from the amplifiers of Grant and lead guitarist, Adam Ian Sykes, while the rhythm section sizzle behind. With all that power running through its veins, 'Death Hilarious' is easily going to be one of the best rock albums of 2025...and that is no joke!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Newcastle's blistering Pigs x7 (EXACTLY seven) bring us a scuzzed-out version of their groundbreaking sound from 2023's mindblowing 'Viscerals'. There are riffs aplenty and heavy hitting lyrics, walls of noise and soaring, groovy basslines but there's also a load of garagey, saturated distortion and loads of muck. Classic pigs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blockage
2. Detroit
3. Collider
4. Stitches
5. Glib Tongued (Feat. El–P)
6. The Wyrm
7. Carousel
8. Coyote Call
9. Toecurler 

Less than six months after Gnod rewired their sound for the umpteenth time, with the release of deliciously detailed deep listener Spot Land, they’re back with another album and a whole new approach. Inner Fucking Peace comprises eight tracks for voice and electronics – varied in style but connected in feeling and recorded as a trio.

Chris Haslam and Paddy Shine, the two ever-present members in the Gnod lineup since their first stirrings in mid-2000s Salford, are completed by Portuguese vocalist MC Sissi. Inner Fucking Peace is the first time MC Sissi, or Cecilia de Fatima dos Santos, a very well known name in Portuguese experimental circles has recorded with Gnod. From the minimalist tuned percussion of ‘Stop’, to the shuffling beats and spaced-out synth on ‘Perde-Te Onde Quiseres’, to ‘Get Out’ and its ominous electronics and crashing industrial drums (combined with Sissi’s irate-sounding vocal, here Gnod are on a tip that compares to great Bristolian duo and recent touring partners Harrga), to the supremely chopped & screwed woodwind that’s central to ‘Flute Theme’, to ‘Reprise’s hypnotic hand drum workout, to ‘Tea & Eggs’ – ten minutes of reggaeton-gone-minimal-synth – to ‘Olivia’, named after Sissi’s niece and the track’s guest vocalist, to ‘Cannela Crematoria’ closing us out and hitting a zenith of gloominess with some more industrial battery folded in…this is a full on Gnod vibe shift that also makes total sense in their infamously extensive discography. With this band enjoying hard-won freedom from release schedule tyranny, they – just like us – don’t know what’s next on the recording agenda, or if there’ll be more Gnod & MC Sissi collab albums, but this is an engrossing introduction to the partnership. In the short term, the trio will be playing some European shows in the autumn, including a slot at Utrecht festival Le Guess Who? in November.

TRACK LISTING

01. Stop
02. Perde-te Onde Quiseres
03. Get Out
04. Flute Theme
05. Reprise
06. Tea & Eggs
07. Olivia
08. Cannela Crematoria 

“We could go so far as to say that it is the human condition to be grotesque, since the human animal is the one that does not fit in, the freak of nature who has no place in the natural order and is capable of re-combining nature’s products into hideous new forms.”

So reckoned Mark Fisher in ‘The Weird And The Eerie’, which chronicled the means by which the uncanny can enter the everyday. Mwg Drwg, the second album from South Wales psychic seers Obey Cobra, is an album that dwells in exactly this kind of headspace, where the otherworldly meets the kitchen sink. Always a band who’ve sought out new dimensions to explore via their trademark warped post-punk, electronic and industrial influences, Obey Cobra have crafted surreal new shapes here. Taking influences as diverse as Diane Arbus, David Lynch and Sonic Youth, they balance out heaviosity and grace on the likes of the majestically discordant ‘Ten Of Wands’ Elsewhere, on the title track, the band sculpt a Jesus Lizard-esque rhythmic pulse, eerie vocal abstraction and the crepuscular downtempo atmosphere of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine into a uniquely haunting dreamscape. Mwg Drwg is where the weird and eerie are amplified to intimidating proportions It’s where grotesquely and beauty happily cohabit. It’s an aural exorcism of William Friedkin proportions that demands your immediate attention.

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The history of BBC Maida Vale Sessions is familiar to The Utopia Strong. As musicians, and lifelong music fans, the legacy - the importance - of such recordings is not lost on them. Space and place influence creativity, as is the case here, and the sleeve is a loving homage to those classic BBC releases, affectionately nodding to Strange Fruit Peel Sessions from days of yore.These pieces, originally recorded live at Maida Vale for a Marc Riley session on BBC 6 Music in September 2022, capture The Utopia Strong stretching themselves and continuing to develop their aural explorations.The five-track album opens with the analogue arpeggios of ‘Minature Citadels’, a title perfectly summing up the imagery provoked by the music; evolving, jagged patterns of skylines and castellations, turrets and towers. The closing outro of squarks and drones could be twice as long and not outstay its welcome.

The nagging refrain running through ‘Lamp Of Glory’ is Mike York on the pipes, which he handmakes himself. The overall effect is a sublime, warped concoction of balearic energy and non-Western modes. ‘Disaster 2’ (a piece initially recorded on their second studio album, 2022’s International Treasure) begins with a beautiful synth drone that maintains its position, overpowering the modular patterns pulsating behind it, augmented by yet more glorious, lamenting pipes. The last two tracks both exceed ten minutes and allow the band to extend out further. Release comes as the drums kick in after six minutes of ‘The Tower Is Locked’, emulating the live sets The Utopia Strong have become famed for.The final track, ‘Weather All’, was also honed across several live performances. Having been booked for Andrew Weatherall’s Conveanza festival pre-lockdown, the band finally performed there in September 2022, following his passing. While performing this piece, the heavens opened and the entire festival, band and audience, were drenched. “It felt absolutely biblical”, says the band. Steve Davis has a rich history with the Beeb, but on this occasion he is wrangling his ever-expanding array of analogue synths, dilating his musical imagination. The heritage of the location and overall experience was not lost on the band.‘

Engelchen literally translates as ‘little angels’ What’s more, for many in the febrile, dangerous era of the 1930s in Nazi-occupied Europe, as they wrote letters to arrange their paths out of danger as refugees, these were Ida and Louise Cook. Ida and Louise spent much of their early years in Sunderland, and in adulthood lived in a suburb of London with their parents. They were enormous fans of opera and led relatively quiet and unfussy lives. Yet secretly these resourceful and eccentric women were using their musical obsessions as a means to help dozens of refugees escape with their lives. Their secretive heroics now almost beggar belief, and when Alison Cotton, herself from Sunderland, first discovered their story, she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more widely known. Furthermore, she was inspired by their courage, fortitude and derring-do to compose Engelchen, a musical tribute to the duo’s lives and work, now a full-length release by Rocket Recordings.

Throughout, this story is relayed by Alison, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place, Nonetheless, the story of Ida and Louise Cook is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It’s a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it’s hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A fittingly haunting, but beautifully presented new LP from Alison Cotton on the always-superb Rocket Recordings. Intensely cinematic instrumentals, shadowy operatic phrasing and swooning, wistful melancholy abound. A warming tribute, and a typically skilled and beautifully emotive selection from Cotton. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

01. We Were Smuggling People’s Lives
02. The Gramophone Circle Parties
03. Engelchen
04. The Letter Burning
05. Crépuscul
06. Dolphin Square
07. Engelchen Now

Thee Alcoholics are the brainchild of Rhys Llewellyn, a longtime Rocket Recordings alumnus whose background leans as heavily into the bassbin-shaking realms of electronic music as it does the tinnitus-inducing world of howling, cranked-up ampstacks. Not content with hammering drumskins for numerous floor-shaking records on the Rocket discography from the likes of Hey Colossus and The Notorious Hi-Fi Killers, he’s also been responsible for brain-rearranging electronic works under the Drmcnt and Acidliner monikers. Thee Alcoholics, however - which initially gestated as a result of Rhys himself wanting to pursue the somewhat hostile sound in his own head during lockdown - maps out a collision course between all of the above.

Cranky and cantankerous yet lysergically aligned, Feedback is mesmeric rock with swagger, warped into sci-fi shapes by the spirit and sonics of bass and soundsystem culture. The psychedelic shapes here are redolent of the ur-klang of The Fall and the monolithic lurch of The Heads, the motorik malevolence less an uplifting trip to the heavens than a drill down to the earth’s core. Discernible in these jackhammer beats, grimly murmured vocals and delirious dirges to certain heads may be the trash futurism of Chrome, the decomposed stomp of unsung legends Earl Brutus and the electro-punk attack of Six Finger Satellite, yet all of the above co-ordinates are waylaid effortlessly by a balls-out intensity and a fearsome intent on aural oblivion at all costs. Feedback may be elemental and primal, yet this is no psych comfort-blanket nor retro-fetishism, rather a repetition-driven journey headlong into intimidating territory unknown. Get on board, and strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride. 

TRACK LISTING

01. What’s The Crack? (What’s The Story?)
02. Baby I’m Your Man
03. Sweetheart
04. It’s So Easy
05. Pity Me
06. Feedback
07. You’re The Zero
08. Se23
09. Dumb & Happy

Traversing the everyday in 2023,the need for ritual catharsis only grows stronger. The need to lose oneself in a force bigger than ourselves, and to venture into innerspace the better to sculpt armour for the battles outside. Luckily this is the job of Bonnacons of Doom, aural soothsayers and progenitors of Trans Pennine hypnotic music.

‘Signs’-their second album for Rocket Recordings-marks both a portent of things to come, and a roadmap of the psychic pathways to survival. This masked troupe, subsumed to mystery and amassed from across the North of England, have stepped up their mission accordingly. Building on the intimidating intensity of theirself-titled2018 debut, this series of fiercely charged mantras and premonitory transmissions is possessed of a new level of communal intensity. The band’s choice of weapons-the monomaniacal intensity of the riff, the liberating binary spirit of electronics and the incantatory vocals of ceremonial leader Kate Smith-here coalesce into a metaphysical force which stands defiant of easy categorisation. Within these otherworldly manifestations lurks solace in a place where the transcendent power of heavy amplification, cosmically aligned sonic explorations and strange forces darker and more unknowable can coalesce to cathartic and redeeming effect.

‘Signs’ marks out a supernatural landscape where ancient and modern, earthly and alien congregate in the eternal now, whilst Bonnacons of Doom transcend era to light a path for the future.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Rocket recordings are the perfect home for psych-drone monoliths Bonnacons Of Doom, and the incendiary 'Signs' is brimming with scathing guitars and hypnotic vocal phrases. Brilliantly heavy, and undeniably enjoyable.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Facing
2. Esus
3. Infra
4. Limina
Side B
5. Shore
6. Signs
7. Lichen
8. Semaphore

In Frank Herbert’s 1973 novel Hellstrom’s Hive, the Dune writer tells of a sinister narrative surrounding the maverick scientist Nils Hellstrom, who has created a meticulously constructed Hive underneath his Oregon farmhouse. Therein, he oversees a subterranean order of 50,000 insect-human hybrid life-forms. Ultimately his plan being for the inhabitants of the Hive to usurp humanity and take over the world.

The decade thus far may not have seen anything quite so daunting, but it’s provided more than its fair share of challenges. Yet in such dystopian environments, Teeth Of The Sea flourish. This band has created a kaleidoscopic inner world all its own in Hive, their sixth and most outlandish album.

Fundamental to Teeth Of The Sea’s mission thus far is that this band can go anywhere and make short work of any obstacles in their path. Unfettered by genre distinctions or expectations, the only limits of this trio - comprising Sam Barton, Mike Bourne and Jimmy Martin - are those of its imagination. It therefore follows that inspiration flowed into Hive from all dimensions, with the band’s sphere of influence - the science fiction, trash culture and cinematic atmospherics by which they’ve fuelled their mission thus far - expanding to take in everything from Italo-disco to minimal techno, from dubbed-out studio madness to their most brazen forays thus far into pop songwriting. Here is a headspace where the psychic charges from records by Labradford, Nurse With Wound, Vangelis, The Knife, Nine Inch Nails and John Barry can happily co-exist.

These disparate pathways cohere and coalesce to create a vivid experience rich with emotion and intrigue. A commission to create a live soundtrack at London’s Science Museum for a documentary on the Apollo Moon Landings gave flight to the trilogy of tracks - Artemis, Æther and Apollo which are summarily imbued with the dreamlike wonder and existential peril of the mission itself. A collaboration with vocalist Kath Gifford (Snowpony, The Wargs, Sleazy Tiger) set loose Butterfly House, which transmutes synthpop stylings into something uniquely radiant, haunting and melancholic. Get With The Program - sung by Mike Bourne - is meanwhile no less than a noise-fuelled, speaker-shaking electro-industrial banger.

Megafragma, meanwhile, is the most experimental track this band has yet created, a collaboration with engineer and co-conspirator Giles Barrett that morphs form and structure in search of new epiphanies - ‘Simple Headphone Mind’ and Roxy Music’s ‘The Bogus Man’ may have formed some of the cues for this nine-minute avant-epic but its trajectory was one the band were happy to submit to external forces.

Hive is more than just a transformative force from subterranean origins. It’s an alchemical headspace where monochrome animates into vivid colour. It may not be a carefully ordered insectoid militia set to overthrow society, but it’s a transmission which transcends anything Teeth Of The Sea have thus far offered in their time on Earth.

Step inside Hive, if you dare.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Teeth Of The Sea are back! With bold strokes of post-punk and kosmische synthwork and swirls of psychedelic wonder, 'Hive' is their most compelling work to date. The ever-reliable Rocket Recordings on fire as always.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1: Artemis
2: Get With The Program
3: Butterfly House
4: Liminal Kin
5: Æther
Side B
1: Megafragma
2: Powerhorse
3: Apollo

It is hard to know how many times the mythology and mystery of Goat’s backstory can be written about, but new release ‘Medicine’ does away with any need to dwell on the past, returning with a more introspective, slightly mellower psych-folk sound that remains recognisably them.

There is a consistently restrained, warm feel across the whole work, and the band suggest that the overall theme of the album is about “the impermanence of life in different ways: sickness, relationships, love, death and how our time is finite”.

At times the album’s sound has nods to classic Swedish 70s psych/prog/folk acts such as Arbete & Fritid, Charlie & Esdor and Träd, Gräs & Stenar. ‘Vakna’ takes on this influence, progressing across nearly six minutes of swaying, warping guitar solos, without ever breaking out into chaos.

The ‘Medicine’ of the title may refer to a number of salves, or the value of relationships and love: “For our families, friends, society, this could be done through the use of psychedelics, through meditation, through learning from other people, staying curious and never settling for a ‘solid’ identity”.

Flute is foregrounded throughout, threading across several tracks from the opener ‘Impermanence And Death’. It duets elegantly with keening synth lines through the beautiful ‘You’ll Be Alright’, and leads the melody of the closing track ‘Tripping In The Graveyard’. ‘TSOD’, with its backdrop of sitar and acoustic guitar, has an indelible vocal melody that could be a lost George Harrison recording.

The title of the full album version of first single, ‘I Became The Unemployment Office’, comes from an expression for someone taking advantage of you. The joyous, echo-laden groove of penultimate track ‘Join The Resistance’ bursts into life and continues to build to a moment of release with a huge Sabbath-esque riff.

Whatever your dosage, and regardless of your remedy, it is now time to take your medicine.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another slab of Goat for the ol' ears is never a bad thing, and on 'Medicine' the swedish psychedelic powerhouse are on peak form. It's more of the same woozy psychedelic fare but honed to perfection through years of meticulous practice. Fuzzy guitars and scattered percussion, thundering basslines and loads of tremolo. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

01. Impermanence & Death
02. Raised By Hills
03. I Became The Unemployment Office
04. Tsod
05. Vakna
06. You’ll Be Alright
07. Join The Resistance
08. Tripping In The Graveyard

Moundabout’s glorious second long player is named after Cnoc Mór na nGaibhlte (or The Big Hill Of The Galtees) an imposing sandstone and shale peak in Munster, from which vantage point the horizon retreats to impossible-seeming distances. Paddy Shine, of psychedelic powerhouse GNOD, and Phil Masterson, of cult groups Los Langeros, Damp Howl and Bisect, chose this as base camp for their latest expedition into a new form of psychedelic Irish folk music.

Getting lost in liminal zones, at thresholds, where boundaries merge is key to the Moundabout sound. The Galtees is an Irish mountain range where the counties Tipperary, Cork and Limerick amalgamate, Shine adds: “We seem to have found ourselves recording and finishing albums in places where the boundaries have become blurry.”

The set up of Shine on acoustic guitar, Masterson on electric guitar, both on vocals and sparse electronic accompaniment from antique Hammond drum machine Shine found in his auntie’s attic and old analogue synth, plus field recordings, remains the same as their debut but this time the pair push further out on tracks such as ‘Step In Out Of That’ which calls to mind Egypt-based free psych trio The Dwarfs Of East Agouza and reaches its apogee on the glorious, sunburst of New Weird Éirana ‘Instinct, Eye And Mind’ which treads in the footsteps of Michael Chapman at his most ragged and echoes the borderless fourth world guitar peregrinations of Mike Cooper. If the voyage that Flowers Rot took us on was one out of modernity into a vibrant megalithic antiquity, it feels like An Cnoc Mór is taking us even further back.

Masterson says: “These hills were hills long before homo sapiens set foot on them, gave them names and stories and insulted them with egotistic concepts such as ‘conquering them’.” The pair agree that getting out into the environment is an essential ingredient in the Moundabout process. Moundabout has always been about getting out in the surroundings, hiking, swimming, chatting and experimenting with certain substances. An Cnoc Mór was recorded with all those influences… just minus the substances.” Sun, snow, hail and wind, there was no choice but just to be out in it & be inspired.

“Enjoy Moundabout’s strange argot, let it wash over you like the tide.” Album of the Week / The Quietus.

“A deep sense of devotional wonder.” Electronic Sound.

“A musical contemplation of the megalithic.” Terrascope.

“A lesson in neolithic ritual and otherworldly transcendence.” Louder Than War.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful, hypnotic suite of brittle folky ballads veiled with ambient drone and woozy psychedelic haze. Reminiscent of the glum slo-mo Americana of Molasses or some of the more ambient Alien8 records. A beautiful immersive selection from two of the finest voices in the alternative music world. Stunner.

TRACK LISTING

01. The Hills Hum Hymns
02. Step In Out Of That
03. Sacred & Profane
04. Living To Give
05. Instinct, Eye And Mind
06. The Torrent

The second album by underground rock-and-beyond shapeshifters The Holy Family comes complete with a heavy concept for the psychedelically inclined, and pairs this with music which does this justice and then some. ‘Go Zero’ follows up the British group’s widely praised self-titled debut from 2021 and – says foundational member David Jason Smith – “is based on a hypothetical theory that there is no such thing as ‘the future’. We are continually moving forward into our past until we arrive at our birth – creation – the Tree Of Knowledge… or ‘Going Zero’, as I’ve termed it.” It figures, then, that over some 40 minutes the five musicians conjure a sound that exhibits an affinity with great experimental totems down the ages, in a manner that’s avowedly forward-facing and stamped with their own identity. All involved boast a pre-Holy Family CV to turn clued-in heads: Kavus Torabi (guitars), Sam Warren (bass) and Emmett Elvin (piano and Rhodes), along with Smith himself, were all members of the mighty Guapo. Finnish studio wizard Antti Uusimaki (Circle/Pharaoh Overlord etc), who co-sculpted the eight tracks on ‘Go Zero’ into their final form. Drummer Joe Lazarus is new to the band – taking over that role from Smith, who largely concentrates on vocals and synths here – and his versatility is never in doubt, as his rhythms pull in myriad directions, blurring the lines between jazz, prog and psych rock. If you dig anything from Can to Boredoms to Oneida, then step this way. Though The Holy Family’s musical inspirations are multitudinous, and rarely if ever obvious, the lyrics nod to a distinct literary source – namely ‘Vorrh’, the trilogy of fantasy novels by cult British author Brian Catling, who died in 2022 while ‘Go Zero’ was being assembled. In these books, the Vorrh is “an impenetrable sentient forest, older than mankind, believed to house all knowledge” – and in the same way that the name The Holy Family references an Angela Carter work, Smith explains, “the track titles ‘Chalky’s Eyes’ (had been eaten by flies) and ‘The Watcher’ are direct references to characters in the book.” With ‘Go Zero’, The Holy Family have returned with an album that unfurls elegantly, even while big time discombobulation is occurring.

TRACK LISTING

1. Crawling Out
2. Bad Travelling
3. Chalky’s Eyes
4. The Watcher
5. Hell Born Babel
6. Go Zero Suite: Pt. I
7. Go Zero Suite: Pt. II
8. Go Zero Suite: Pt. III 

Let’s face facts here; we’re all a mess. Life in the 2020s thus far has been a litany of crushing indignities at best. Living standards plummet, lies carry the same currency as truth, and rock music - that racket that once served as countercultural force and revolutionary fire - has been neutered and subsumed into nullity.That’s unless you’re listening to The Shits. ‘You’re A Mess’ - the second album from Leeds’ filthiest sons - is a staggering assault of invective fit to reignite your ire, and a sound that constitutes a real and present threat to life and limb. Contained within these eight feral exorcisms is a merciless assault of Stoogian/stygian riffage, gloriously purgatorial abjection and intimidating aggro that takes a garage-rock blueprint and grinds its face in the dirt.If these grimy dirges and salvos of horror have a precedent, it’s in the menacing audial lineage that connects Fun House through the AmRep label, Brainbombs and

Drunk In Hell - the process where relentless negativity is alchemically transformed into profane primal salvation. Yet The Shits worship no heroes, obeying a thanatotic urge that sees no separation between death and glory.Listen to this album and you will believe once again in catharsis by way of heavy amplification. Psych-rock is dead, and The Shits are the executioners. Assume the position.

TRACK LISTING

01. In My Hotel Room
02. Waiting
03. You’re A Mess
04. The Venus (After Hours)
05. Bludgeoned To Death
06. Alone Ii
07. Ugly, Worthless
08. I Regret Nothing (Parts 1 & 2)

Whether inhabiting the realm of dreams or nightmares, the primordial drive of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is more powerful than ever and ‘Land Of Sleeper’, their fifth record in a decade of rancour and revelation is testimony to this. Arguably the most potent and assured record of their storied life so far, it’s the product of a band energised and fortified by their individual passions to incendiary effect. After the travails of the two and a half years since 2020’s ‘Viscerals’, ‘Land Of Sleeper’ sees the Newcastle-based quintet not so much reinvigorated as channelling a furious drive which only appears to gather momentum as the band’s surroundings spins on their axis.

For all that the last few years have seen Pigs’ stature rise in the wake of triumphant festival slots and sold-out venues like, this remains a band fundamentally incapable of tailoring their sound to a prospective audience, rather standing alone and impervious as a monument of catharsis.“Certainly for me, writing and playing music is often surprising and revealing, it can be like holding up a mirror and seeing things you didn’t expect to see” reckons drummer Ewan Mackenzie, whose return to the Pigs fray after two albums away marked another big influence on the new record. “For me, the darker tracks on the record hold in common a determination not to lose faith, despite the odds”

The better to unite slumber and waking, ‘Land Of Sleeper’ is no less than an act of transcendence for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - new anthems to elucidate a world sleepwalking to oblivion.

'Land Of Sleeper come housed in eye-popping 'Callum Rooney' sleeve art with obi strip and 'Oz' style lyrics poster.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The unstoppable Pigs x7 return for a more expansive blast of their gritty sludge-rock, swimming with groove but edging into darker climes. It's a confident and psychedelic blast from one of the greatest bunch of noise merchants in the game.

TRACK LISTING

01. Ultimate Hammer
02. Terror's Pillow
03. Big Rig
04. The Weatherman
05. Mr Medicine
06. Pipe Down!
07. Atlas Stone
08. Ball Lightning 

Every single psychonaut worth their salt can remember a moment, midway through some chemically-assisted voyage into the unknown, when someone in the room had the sheer gall to utter the immortal words that strike terror into the heart of everyone present: “Hey, imagine what it’d be like if we stayed this way forever?” Wonder no longer. Existing permanently stranded at the dizzying peak of a nightmarish hallucinatory travelogue, Shit & Shine are here to make that moment a reality. Yet thankfully, as always in this absurdist and electrifying realm, they’re notable for offering a different vision from the third eye whenever they make themselves manifest. What’s more, with New Confusion they’ve usurped their own outré paradigms yet again, resulting in a demented heat-haze panorama of delirious beat-driven abandon and elucidated neural pathways.

As ever the brainchild of Texan king of outlaw brinkmanship Craig Clouse, these nine abject and glorious meditations exist in an alternate dimension whereby a loop-driven exploratory framework is joyridden with alacrity offroad by a moonshine-swigging convict, a zone whereby aural scrap metal is alchemically transformed into gleaming, abstract and intimidating structures and sculptures anew. It may not have occurred to the average head that the sound of Tropicália melting gleefully in the sun (as here essayed on ‘Miami’) might be to their satisfaction, nor that the image of J Dilla trapped in a K-hole with Butthole Surfers would do anything but make them mildly anxious. Similarly, the prospect of Ming The Merciless screaming with rage at his internet service provider (see ‘Robbed’) may not be something that immediately appeals to music listeners around the globe, and nor could most folk imagine an in-the-red floor-filler being quite as pulverising and irresistible as the motorik mangler ‘Annoyed’, which kicks off this album in incendiary style - no less than the sound of ‘Hallogallo’-in-hell. Yet if the parallel universe of Shit & Shine exists for anything, it’s to map out new frontiers of wrong and righteous beyond your wildest expectations. Meet the new end-of-level boss. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Annoyed
2. Cocoa Leaves
3. Miami
4. Shipped
5. Runnin Around
6. Park Road 1-C
7. Riviera
8. Steak Butter
9. Robbed

Formidable psychic warriors, channelers of the mystic and proponents of a spiritual quest that transcends this realm, Goat remain a band shrouded in mystery. Travelling from their inscrutable origins in the Swedish village of Korpilombo across the stages and festivals of the world in the last decade, this band has created their incendiary music entirely according to their own co-ordinates.

With all this in mind, the casual observer might have guessed from its title that ‘Requiem’, their beatific and melancholic album of 2016, was to be their last. Yet the ancestral spirits summoned by their art are always restless. Thus the eternal cycles of rebirth have triumphantly produced ‘Oh Death’ - a ceremonial conflagration as powerful as any this band has made.Invigorated by forces we can only guess at the origins of, ‘Oh Death’ is a party to which all are welcome. Blithely waving away easy classification, these heat-hazed serenades are just as comfortable in the headspace of vicious ‘70s funk as they are in zesty ZE records post-punk.

Folk-haunted incantations and free jazz skronk here find common ground, buoyed by relentless forward motion and raucous energy. Yet all of the above is locked into a delirious gnostic groove that threatens to throw the whole shebang spiraling into orbit. ‘Oh Death’ is driven by a supernatural charge that unifies, invigorates and transcends borders, whether geographical, musical, or between this world and the next. In the hands of these sages and soothsayers, this is just the beginning. Goat Is ‘Oh Death’, Long Live Goat.

STAFF COMMENTS

Willow says: Goat returns with another musical edict from above, a kaleidoscope of demented funk of which the human spirit is desperately in need, according to the band. The fuzzy psychedelia of cracking lead single ‘Under No Nation’ was a perfect mission statement for this phase of the band, so strap in for a wonderfully weird ride with the undeniable forebearers of oddity.

TRACK LISTING

01. Soon You Die
02. Chukua Pesa
03. Under No Nation
04. Do The Dance
05. Apegoat
06. Goatmilk
07. Blow The Horns
08. Remind Yourself
09. Blessings
10. Passes Like Clouds

Alison Cotton presents The Portrait You Painted of Me, a new 6-track album – her first for Rocket Recordings (released on Feeding Tube in the USA). Like Alison’s previous solo albums, the touchstones of her immersive sound are viola, harmonium and voice, merged together to create a rich suite of songs. ‘Mumurations Over the Moor’ is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of North East England (from where she hails). ‘The Last Wooden Ship’ evokes the shipyards of Sunderland using droning harmonium and viola lines, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like one of Tim Buckley’s Sirens urging listeners to a rocky demise. ‘I Buried the Candlesticks’ has a haunted, traditional feel with its dolorously folky viola melody laid across a thick carpet harmonium, and small bursts of percussion that sound like cannonade heard through the thick cold walls of a castle in winter. ‘That Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending’ is a musical vision of Northumberland’s mining culture at the dawn of the 20th Century - labyrinthine, subterranean, dimmer than night. ‘Violet May’, the only traditional “song” on the album, was inspired by a trip to Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle.

Its plot deals with a reclusive artist who has forsaken all else for a life of solitary creation in her tower. The structure and sound reminiscent of a post-modern approach to lyrical concerns dealt with by folk singers of the British ‘60s, but the actual arrangement is closer to something John Cale might have done with Nico on The Marble Index. The closing track, ‘17th November 1962’, inspired by nearly-forgotten memories of disaster with a fishing boat, a storm and an ill-fated rescue attempt. The song (and album) ends with what sounds like a forlorn foghorn cutting across waves of night with Alison’s voice again evoking the Sirens.

As with its predecessors, The Portrait You Painted of Me was recorded at home in London, beautifully produced by Alison’s partner, Mark Nicholas, and it contains all the elements that result in the sombre, exquisite melancholy she creates. This is some serious and remarkable stuff.

TRACK LISTING

01. Murmurations Over The Moor
02. The Last Wooden Ship
03. I Buried The Candlesticks
04. That Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending
05. Violet May
06. 17th November 1962

Call it synchronicity, call it happenstance, call it no more than three friends getting together to give their speakers a workout. Yet The Utopia Strong’s formidable conflagration of psychedelic radiance and beatific harmony has evolved way beyond all or any expectations since the band’s inception.. ‘International Treasure’ chronicles the collaborative collision of Steve Davis, Kavus Torabi and Mike York heading into unchartered psychic territory, seemingly with nothing but their instincts as co-ordinates.What’s resulted is a step beyond anything either band or audience might have expected - a deeply rewarding voyage into inner space which moves into darker and still more evocative sound-worlds whilst remaining fundamentally off the map. Influences know no bounds in this context, and the listener would be forgiven for locating the atmospheres and soundscapes of this album on some sonic promontory above and between the potent abstractions of Tim Hecker, the improvisatory excursions of The Necks, and the gothic allure of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore.‘International Treasure’’ is the next chapter in a story which only grows more rewarding with every stop along the way - one in which three heads travel together deeper into their own musical journeys, and the resulting alchemical power transmutes its origins into gold. As no less a sage than Andrew Weatherall proclaimed, The Utopia Strong are “gnostic sonics in a nutshell”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The frankly astounding Utopia Strong return for another LP of lysergic synthlines and dreamy psychedelic electronica. It's full of hefty grooves and sonic waves, but never overwhelmingly heavy, opting instead for a perfectly balanced and wonderfully produced audio expedition. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

01 - Trident Of Fire
02 - Persephone Sleeps
03 - Shepherdess
04 - Spirits From The Deep
05 - The Islanders
06 - Disaster 2
07 - Revelations
08 - International Treasure
09 - Castalia 

“Holy Scum”. Say it out loud. It’s a name that can’t help but be spat out viciously; a snarling exclamative that fits the bludgeoning sludge and feedback drenched improv rock that its progenitors unleash on their debut for Rocket Recordings, Strange Desires.Initially a Manchester-based collaboration between guitarist Peter J Taylor (formerly of Action Beat) GNOD co-founder Chris Haslam on bass and his bandmate Jon Perry on drums, the thick gauze of Holy Scum’s jams have been pulled apart in production by one of half of legendary hip-hop duo Dälek, Mike Mare (aka Mike Manteca). He also provides the growling, guttural vocals.“When Mike got involved it became another thing entirely to what we had originally perceived” notes Haslam “He added a whole new dimension to what we had been working on.”“He kept asking if it was okay to fuck what we sent him up and we kept asking him to fuck it up even more” adds Taylor. “I kept referencing My Bloody Valentine in terms of creating a wall of noise, but we wanted it to be heavy as fuck.” The resulting dystopian tumult of sound thus also finds itself somewhere above and beyond the sonic scorched earth inhabited by early Swans, Godflesh and Shit And Shine.“All of the lyrics revolve around the collapse of society, feeling numb watching it happen, what it’s like on the other side communicating with the dead and looking to other worlds for relief” reckons Mare” Indeed, Strange Desires is a record for the moment, and beyond. A howl amidst a world fallen off its axis. Holy Scum are unflinching in their confrontation, meeting fire with fire on this most stunning debut.

TRACK LISTING

01. Never Feeling Your Endless Breathing
02. Room Of Cruelty
03. Everybody Takes You Just Take More
04. A World About To Die
05. Light Chooses Mine
06. Drowned By Silence
07. Useless Wonderful Doubt
08. Pcgfhilthposhi

Birthed in the bohemian enclave and epicentre of strange vibrations that is Calderdale in West Yorkshire, Hexen Valley’s story began in summer 2021 when a new formation of Gnod came together in a co-op house at the 200-year-old Nutclough Tavern. As always, the line-up of the collective shifted and morphed to fit circumstances, and soon they embarked on intensive jamming that was eventually captured by Sam Greenwood in Hebden Bridge Underground studios.

Inspiration struck not only from the chemistry of the four musicians in this confined room but all around - the band’s Paddy Shine cites the likes of shop noticeboard messages and pub conversations in Hebden as lyrical sparks; channeling by his reckoning the ‘valley fever’ that exists somewhere in the chasms and contrasts between the amazing light and vivacity of the valley summit and the comparative darkness of the towns below.

Meanwhile, musical shapes were making themselves known seemingly of their own volition, from ‘Still Running’, which takes shape across a sonic hinterland between Daydream Nation-style kineticism and sludged-out aggression to ‘Bad Apple’ - an entirely spontaneous piece of potent and angular post-punk intensity. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Lou Reed’s tour-bus favourite ‘Waves Of Fear’ is hammered out with fearsome gusto into a salvo of first-take catharsis and alchemy, fit to transcend all or any oppressive atmospheres that surround.Hexen Valley is the sound of a band whose fearsome intensity is only matched by their evolutionary drive.

It’s Gnod at full power, and it’s a haunted place you might struggle to leave

TRACK LISTING

1. Bad Apple
2. Spotlight
3. Skies Are Red
4. Antidepressants
5. Still Runnin’
6. Waves Of Fear

Hypnagogia remains one of the most mysterious and haunting daily states of mind. Moments of revelation are wont to traditionally hit us particularly in the hinterland between dream and waking, It’s this particular headspace that’s very much the world of ‘Pö om pö’, the second Rocket Recordings released full-length record from Sweden’s equally mysterious OCH. Pö om pö (meaning ‘little by little’) is a journey further into inner space from ‘II’, the previous Rocket outing (which followed a 2014 cassette only release)

What’s mapped out here is a trajectory on the kosmische continuum that touches on the terrain of late 70s Sky records style ambience, the more overgrown quarters of Swedish experimental prog and the sun-baked lo-fi DIY cassette culture of the US early ‘00s.Dwelling in a smoke-clouded glow that’s equal parts sunset gold and effects pedal red, OCH have here transcended all influences to creating a tapestry of potent psychotropic sound. A record in which new horizons open up beyond the small hours, and where primeval wah-wah-abetted skronk and mantric folk[1]tinged repetition can collude to reveal new third-eye perceptions. Little By Little, Pö om pö , these forty minutes are here to bridge the chasms between conscious and subconscious, and in style.

TRACK LISTING

01. Bolid
02. Vadstena
03. Syzyrgy
04. Silverstjärnan
05. Isfält
06. Bråviken
07. Impetus
08. Ochra

Not unlike the supernatural deities from which they take their name, DJINN - the Swedish collective featuring members of Hills and GOAT in their ranks - have proven themselves a potent and mysterious force. Their first release for Rocket Recordings was a portrait of open-minded explorers foraying into the realms of free and cosmic jazz, but never overly reverential or in thrall to their own influences.

Following the ‘Avant De Servir’ tape which was released on Swedish label Zeon Light last year, ‘Transmission’ is a still more intrepid step into new terrain for DJINN - the mantric rhythms are hypnotic here, the freeform extrapolations hit new peaks of vivid abandon, and the moments of calm are blissfully meditative. Yet their sound palette extends into refreshing collisions of intent and metaphysical intensity that echo across the psychic landscapes of Sunburned Hand Of The Man-style freak-folk, as well as the polylingual fusion of jazz, European and Asian music that Don Cherry essayed on 1969’s ‘Eternal Rhythm’ and 1973’s ‘Organic Music Society’.

Amidst these intoxicating and richly eclectic soundworlds, the band are just as comfortable invoking Popol Vuh (as on the mellotronabetted title track) Art Ensemble Of Chicago and the lineage of Swedish underground music that found epiphanies in the radical folk-psych of Arbete Och Fritid whilst also sounding - crucially - like no-one but themselves.

For all the far-reaching explorations of altered states by which DJINN set out their stall, this collection of mystical headspaces - in all its fearless and feral glory - is proof positive that the band’s journey has only just begun. This transmission is set to ring out across dimensions unknown.

The album, which is ltd to 400 copies on colour vinyl comes with a download code that also contains as a bonus their 2020 ‘Avant De Servir EP’ that was originally released on cassette via Swedish label Zeon Light.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A heady and intoxicating mix of wandering percussion, jazzy groove and psychedelic arm-waving trippery, 'Transmisision' provides the perfect laid-back counterpoint to bands like like Goat or Altin Gun, with the free-flowing improvisational meandering perfectly offsetting the more standard psychey business. A brilliantly enjoyable journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sun Ooze
2. Creator Of Creation
3. Transmission
4. Nights With Kurupi
5. Jaguar
6. Urm The Mad
7. Love Divine
8. Orpheus

Straight from the fertile imagination of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs guitarist Sam Grant comes Rubber Oh - a place where an irreverent magpie spirit has its way with the eternal psych-pop continuum. ‘Little Demon’ is the first sample of this fresh foray - a bass-driven, blissed out mantra that sets out its stall where the travails of the everyday fade into the transcendental realm of the astral plane. A whole new box of sonic delights from a curious and artful talent, this track maps out a refreshing new landscape on which shameless melodic suss and wayward aural eccentricity lock horns. Some may be reminded of the likes of Air’s ‘10000Hz Legend’ and Super Furry Animals ‘Radiator’ by the montage of 60s-tinged mind-melt and sleek futurism here, but the truth is that Rubber Oh is a manifestation of a very personal vision. Alchemically assembled in his own Blank studios in Newcastle, ‘Little Demon’ - in all its thundering, earcandy glory, and accompanied by a Faustian, abstraction-embracing remix by friends and cohorts Richard Dawson and Circle’s Jussi Lehtisalo - is merely a first step into the unknown. “It’s a reference to when you’re lying in bed and your thoughts sabotage you” reasons Grant of ‘Little Demon’ - “It’s all meant to be this fixed loop - the lyrics, the riff, the drums - a constant repetition that keeps going round, maybe like a fever dream. The little demons that when you’re in bed suddenly start in your psyche, opening a door that just leads to another door” Wherever this door leads, ‘Little Demon’ is a psychic journey to be returned to on repeat.

TRACK LISTING

Little Demon
Little Demon (richard Dawson’s Haunted Wine-cellar Version) Feat: Jussi Lehtisalo

First Seance’ is the debut album by Land Trance, a new collaboration between Liverpool-based experimental musicians Andrew P.M Hunt and Benjamin D. Duvall, originally released via Forest Swords’ Dense Truth label in May 2020. Sharing rehearsal rooms, houses and band-mates for over a decade across Merseyside, the duo developed their respective practices in tandem with each other – Duvall delving into percussive ensemble composition as the founder of the acclaimed Ex-Easter Island Head, Hunt exploring the possibilities of songwriting, synthesis and texture as Dialect (with a release for RVNG - Under~Between - due March 2021) and leader of art rock band Outfit. Working together as Land Trance, they utilise spontaneous electroacoustic improvisation and studio-as-instrument post production to explore the inner and outer reaches of each other’s musical vocabularies.

Recorded in spaces including a bedroom overlooking Concert Square, the thumping epicentre of Liverpool nightlife, and pieced together in the home studio they share in a converted embassy, tracks here oscillate between vocal-led ecclesiastical yearning (Transcript, Chilean Miners) and ecstatic assemblages of sound (Beach Mystery, A Raft), always suggesting a palpable sense of geography with an allusive sense of place. Using zither, drum machine, music box, dictaphone, synthesiser and melodica amongst other sonic sources, through the course of the album threads of potential narrative and association circle like the rods of a mobile. ‘First Seance’ elevates deceptively simple materials and means with vivid imagination and bold compositional strategies, transcending the intimate scale of bedroom recording and DIY sound creation. It presents a wholly original set of musical environments, and a compelling document of intuition, friendship and artistic curiosity.

TRACK LISTING

1. Regulate 06:43
2. Beach Mystery 02:45
3. Chilean Miners 05:21
4. Transcript 03:55
5. A Raft 08:23
6. Velarde 03:12
7. First Seance 09:40
8. Yardang 05:04

We just wanted to jam really and see what happened” reasons Paddy Shine of GNOD fourteen years on from their inception in Salford. “That led us down the road of constructing a vibe or an atmosphere for playing live. We played a lot of squats, house gigs and parties in the early days. We lived in each others pockets - shared ideas, books, films etc. We just got on one. Some heads came along for the ride. Good times.” This momentum gathered quickly into a band with formidable psychic power, captured in style on Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy - a compilation of tricky-to-find, obscure and unreleased material from the heady early days of the band, all released on vinyl for the first time. It’s the sound of an uncompromising devotion to rapture through noise and repetition, a portrait of a band whose anarchic approach and raw intensity any other outfit would be frankly terrified to follow onstage. Captured in the hypnotic rhythmic drive and intimidating atmospheres of tracks like ‘They Live’ and ‘Inner Z’ (both only previously available on Myspace) is a mantric energy which take a jumping-off point from the Krautrock, Japanese rock and underground American psychedelia the band were hammering at the time, as well as the droogy nihilism of The Stooges debut. Yet these feral experiments reach far beyond into a headspace that acknowledges no boundaries, rock orthodoxy or genre constriction. “We’re always searching for new music, new thoughts, new experiences” says founder member Chris Haslam, “That drove us a lot in the early days, and still does” A full decade, countless enlightened minds and scores of ruptured speaker cones later, the GNOD journey continues unabated - onward to fresh creation and new annihilation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Aaah, Gnod. I honestly love everything they've ever done, and this gives a perfect insight into the genesis of their own particular brand of narcotic psychedelia. Lysergic grooves, crushing sludge and cacophonous noise all play a part here, as perfectly balanced back then as it is today. Absolutely essential.

TRACK LISTING

01. Elka
02. Inner Z
03. They Live
04. 5th Sun (Chaudelande Version)
05. A Very Special Request
06. Deadbeatdisco!!! Part 1
07. Deadbeatdisco!!! Part 2
08. Frostbitten 

Goat return with Commune, the eagerly awaited follow up to their astonishing debut album World Music. Commune continues on with World Music's acidic grooves, hypnotic incantations, and serpentine guitar lines but also introduces a darker, more angry edge to the band, not seen before on previous releases. Starting with the layered percussive groove, Eastern guitar flourishes, and convoking vocals of "Talk To God", it re-establishes the trance-inducing rhythms and exotic blaze of guitar that characterized their debut so well.

That spellbound pulse delves into darker and more propulsive territories on "Words" and "Goatslaves", while "Goatchild" veers towards the transcendental pop of '60s Bay Area rock. The vintage psychedelic vibe permeates through songs like "The Light Within" and "To Travel The Path Unknown" - tracks that suggest that these rural Swedes operate on the same wavelength as the Turkish psych-folkies recently rediscovered by reissue labels like Finders Keepers. Commune reaches its apex when Goat's hymnal invocations meet a heavy doze of proto-metal fuzz on "Hide From The Sun" and "Gathering of Ancient Tribes".

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Goat, those anonymous citizens of the world, reflect their magpie exoticism in sound and appearance, a blazing array faithful at once to all and no culture in particular. 'World Music' was, then, a completely appropriate, somewhat ironic label for a joyous, free spirited manifesto of universalism that exploded into the world like an asteroid strike, rendering at a stroke much else tired, conservative, and lacking in passion. 'Commune' follows that tradition, but, cradled at either end within the serenity of Buddhist singing bowls, this is a more concise and aggressive ritual, inheriting a strong African influence (specifically Mali this time) but built more around guitar lines, less around rhythm. This is typified by the sublime opening snarl of "Talk To God", insolent vocal chants soaring over a hypnotic guitar spiral. Worth waiting for? ‘Commune’ is at least as good as its incredible predecessor - and that is really some achievement.

TRACK LISTING

01. Talk To God
02. Words
03. The Light Within
04. Travel The Path Unknown
05. Goatchild
06. Goatslaves
07. Hide From The Sun
08. Bondye
09. Gathering Of Ancient Tribes

When two planets collide in any solar system, the catastrophic result will most likely reduce both to dust and ash, sending warm debris hurtling through space. Yet from destruction, comes creation. So to the new and sixth record by Pharaoh Overlord - a cataclysmic clash with bewitching results. The band’s current duo of Tomi Leppänen and Jussi Lehtisalo first channelled their love of krautrock-damaged monomania into synth-driven motorik soundscapes on 2019’s ‘5’ yet this new exploration is a step way beyond, into a chilly and captivating electronic panorama. Beholden to the melodies and textures of Kraftwerk yet also the cinematic austerity of EBM and the effervescent pulse of classic Italo-pop, it’s further abetted by fierce and corrosive vocals from longtime collaborator and Sumac/Isis/Old Man Gloom seer Aaron Turner, which stand atop these futuristic serenades not unlike the fevered delivery of a dystopian hellfire preacher. The result, richly coherent yet startling even for the unpredictable world of this band, arrives like a series of otherworldly epiphanies. The opening ‘Path Eternal’ sets its stall out in style, marrying Moroder and Mayhem with a hint of the apocalypse manifesto of Skinny Puppy lurking in the middle distance. ‘Arms Of The Butcher’ is a strident anthem for a modern pandemonium, ‘Blue Light Hum’ meanwhile comes on like a robotic Neu! summoning end-credits euphoria. And most audaciously of all, ‘Without Song All Will Perish’ takes the urbane yet decadent sound of Voulez-Vous-era ABBA and reinvents it as a venomous disco Gotterdämerrung.

Aaron Turner was sent this material by Tom and Jussi and initially ask to contribute to two or three songs to a sharp deadline, but the results soon revealed themselves to be so powerful that he ended up writing lyrics for the whole album, his vicious but uplifiting vision taking inspiration from the melodic yet scabrous likes of Killing Joke, Leatherface and Kill The Thrill. “I was also thinking of Drawing Down The Moon era Beherit where the music had gone almost entirely electronic and the only vestige of the metal aesthetic that remained was the vocal style” he notes “That rub of “artificial” music and organic/humanistic/off kilter vocals was intriguing for me.” Written as the pandemic began to dominate world events in 2020, the resulting emotional turmoil couldn’t help but heavily affect its lyrical slant of this record. 6 has therefore become a record based on separation – the physical distance between the band members themselves, as well as the isolation of the quarantine itself. Yet it’s also a record concerned with finding a way forward amidst the modern cataclysms that surround - channelling negative experience into a positive change. True to form, like a brightly underlit disco dancefloor flashing out a warning of danger, the alchemical force of 6 is equal parts hedonistic rapture and dark revelation.Let him who have understanding reckon the number of the beat, for it is a human number. Its number is 6

TRACK LISTING

01 Path Eternal (6.35)
02 Arms Of The Butcher (5.10)
03 Without Song All Will Perish (8.14)
04 Tomorrow’s Sun (6.13)
05 Blue Light Hum (14.00) 

Porto-based experimental duo Paisiel comprise Portuguese drummer João Pais Filipe and German saxophonist Julius Gabriel. Both full-time musicians across several genres and disciplines, with Rocket Recordings having just released a collaborative album between João and Salford hit squad Gnod titled ‘Faca De Fogo’, the vibe Paisiel achieve across their second album ‘Unconscious Death Wishes’ sounds specific, singular and ultimately unique.

The pair first met in 2014, began recording as Paisiel in 2017, released their first, self-titled album on cassette through local label Lovers & Lollypops in 2018 and had it pressed onto vinyl in 2019 courtesy of Rocket Recordings, who have maintained the partnership for this follow-up. A progression from what was already forward-facing music, ‘Unconscious Death Wishes’ is a single 39-minute piece recorded using improvisation based around composed structures, or what the drummer calls “instant composition”.

Beginning quietly and mournfully, an array of percussion, avantelectro synths (think Cabaret Voltaire or Muslimgauze) and expansive sax swiftly takes hold. At times, this could be a late 60s proto-Krautrock cafeteria jam, early 70s New York loft jazz happening or Brazilian street parade from whichever decade takes your fancy.Listeners might read all kinds of emotions or states of mind into this music: Paisiel themselves play to transcend such earthly concerns. ‘Unconscious Death Wishes’ is their way of evoking, in Julius’ words, “landscapes, shapes, colours, proportions and movements”.

TRACK LISTING

A. Unconscious Death Wishes Part 1
B. Unconscious Death Wishes Part 2

Gnoomes, the Russian outfit who blend a potent mix of psychedelic stargaze, kraut techno and kosmiche pop return with a brand new album, MU! their third for Rocket Recordings. Since the release of their last album Tschak! the three piece has turned into a quartet with synth player Masha Piankova joining the band. And it was the success of their tours in the UK and Europe that subconsciously created a template and tone for where the band would go next with this new album; to capture that surging drive and throbbing assault of their pulverising live shows. “We decided to make this record more live and less electronic,” Sasha, singer and guitarist from Gnoomses said. “We were thinking about how to make it sound more dynamic.” Masha’s introduction was a key one, with her replacing Sasha on synth bass whilst he moved over to second guitar to add a fuller and more impactful sonic crunch. MU! has been part recorded in the same old soviet radio station where the band recorded Tschak! part in a professional studio and then part at home.

This was to ensure the best capture of Gnoomes live assault. The results brim with a magnitude and sense of coherence that belies some of the environment it was created in. Fuzz-driven guitars shift in engulfing waves, resembling shoegaze giants at their most ferocious, whilst elsewhere layered vocals stack on top of one another, weaving between pristine melody and augmented discordance. Whilst the glacial electronics and coldwave tendencies that soaked much of their previous album may be more absent here, this record pulses with an electronic tinge that bubbles more subtly under the surface of immersive guitars

The title Mu! has Japanese origins and comes from Zen Buddhism – something Sasha began to practice during past trying times - meaning both “no” and “nothingness” and the understanding that the acceptance of this concept can lead to enlightenment. “For me personally it’s a spiritual record,” he says. Although any sonic warbles of new age blandness couldn’t be further from the end results here. This is a cleansing record, no doubt, but one that washes over you with both brutal force and deft subtleness. With the completion of this album, it also wraps up a trio of records all connected via punctuation – Ngan! Tschak! Mu! - but with one each distinct in its own tone and sense of evolution. From Bowie to the Cure to Moderat, musical history is peppered with great musical trilogies and now Gnoomes’ Exclamation Mark Trilogy can be added to that.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: In classic fashion, Gnoomes have created yet another album that will i'm sure elicit excited 'What Is This?!' responses upon playing in the shop. Resplendent with Krautrock drive but accentuated with often manic synth phrases and mind-melting atmospheric electronic wizardry smeared over the top. Thoroughly mad, but entirely enjoyable.

TRACK LISTING

01/ Utro
02/ Sword In The Stone
03/ Irma
04/ Glasgow Coma State
05/ Sine Waves Are Good For Your Health
06/ Ursa Major
07/ Progulka
08/ How Do You
09/ Feel Now

London-based psychedelic stalwarts Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation are proud to reveal their third album 'Sacred Dreams' for Rocket Recordings. Continuing to dive into the deeper waters of experimentation, ‘Sacred Dreams’ is both a musically hefty amalgamation of reverb drenched space-rock and retro centric electronics, as well as an emotionally cathartic release for the band, marking a new direction and fresh approach.

Since their critically acclaimed album 'Mirage' was released, Josefin and writing partner Fredrik have relocated from Stockholm to London and have created a new Liberation around them - this new band consists of the powerful and intuitive assemblage of musicians; Maki (Go Team), Patrick C Smith (Eskimo Chain), Matt Loft (Lola Colt) and Ben Ellis, who’s worked with both Iggy Pop and Swervedriver. ‘Sacred Dreams’ was largely recorded at Press Play Studios (King Krule, Fat White Family, Yves Tumor, Stereolab, High Llamas and many others) run by Andy Ramsay of Stereolab, who also produced and even programmed his non synced drum machines adding a lot of inspiration to the album.

‘Scared Dreams’ invites you into the bands own dimensional soundscape, a world built with transcendental guitars, driving grooves and otherworldly, enchanting vocals, altogether seeped in layers of blissfully produced synths. Opener and lead single ‘Feel The Sun’ encapsulates this new direction perfectly before the anthemic ‘I Can Feel It’ makes the bands intentions known. Elsewhere playful 80s electronics sit alongside a shoegaze sensibility effortlessly and amongst the textured flow of the LP emerge pop hooks like the infectiously bluesy ‘Baby Come On’.

Josefin tells us “This album comes out of a period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution, but also of deep love, warmth and beauty unveiled in the middle of it. A sacred dream, the way we see it, is not necessarily a golden fluffy cloud river, but instead also contains all the shadows that need to be seen and felt in order to drop what has to go in order to truly live. And the dissonance of such a dream may not be immediately apparent, let alone the meaning of it. In a way all of these tracks seem to emanate from that place where we have almost reached a new shore, or maybe we missed it and are headed somewhere else entirely, but there’s no way of telling until afterwards.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: After the experimental krautrock LP ‘Horse Dance’ (2015) and the pulsing psychedelia on shop-favourite ‘Mirage’ (2016), London-based Swedes Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation return with their most diverse album to date, showcasing a variation of sounds, including, but not limited to, 80s synths, trippy, reverb-laden guitars and dreamy, 60s inspired pop. ‘Sacred Dreams’, which was written during a ”period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution”, is less of a sonic journey than its predecessors and instead seems to show that Josefin and her band don’t want to be confined to a particular genre. After opening with the electronic and motorik dance tracks “Feel The Sun”; “I Can Feel It” and “Desire” the Spiritualized-esque “Hey Little Boy”, the transcendental “Only Lovers” and the blues stomper “Baby Come On” lead the album into a hazier, mellower and more psychedelic direction.

TRACK LISTING

01/ Feel The Sun
02/ Honey Slumber
03/ I Can Feel It
04/ Desire
05/ Hey Little Boy
06/ Only Lovers
07/ Baby Come On
08/ New Horizons
09/ Caramel Head
10/ Let It Come
11/ Whatever You Want
12/ Floating Away

The Lay Llamas, who consist of the Sicilian-born and raised but now Rome-based duo of Gioele Valenti and Nicola Giunta, release their debut album 'Ostro' on Rocket. Recorded in an old-house in the Segesta countryside of Sicily, Valenti and Giunta soaked up the history-imbued environment. The makeshift studio was located alongside the great Temple of Hera that dates all the way back to 6th century BC “We’ve been so influenced by the place’s mood, with that ancient presence in the air” says Valenti. These recording sessions have resulted in a heavily layered album, filled (but not clogged) with various instrumentation from the expected guitars, bass, synth and drums to the more unexpected sounds of Tibetan Bells and Ukulele.

Like any successful duo, harmony and contradiction are equally important artistic traits in their working relationship. Between the two they take in a continent-leaping, platform-splitting array of personal influences that then seeps into their lysergic output. Purely on a musical level there is a joint love of artists such as Ennio Morricone they then split off into the structured and the song heavy (Angels of Light, Nick Drake, Mike Scott) to the rhythmic, both the hypnotic and groove-laden sort (Fela Kuti, Broadcast, Sun Araw, Kraftwerk). Italian tradition plays a pivotal role too with the creeping tones and floating atmospheres of 60’s and 70’s Italian library and soundtrack music playing a subtle supporting-role.

This breadth of personal influences can be found in the emphasis of ‘Ostro’, it’s a constantly shifting record, never remaining stuck or fixated on anything for too long. Crossing continents, be it musically, stylistically or physically, seems to be something the pair return to over and over again, the subtle radiations of Africa that can be heard on the record are no accident, “I think that Sicilians are more like Africans than Europeans in some way. We have almost the same weather and architecture. We feel in our soul the same feeling of all Mediterranean people – a fatalistic instinct of drama. But in our music, Africa is such a metaphysical place, not so geographical, such a map on the sheet of the soul, connecting with ancient rites of Sun, different levels of enlightenment; a sense of a mystical path to follow.” Valenti offers. “A mystical path to follow” is perhaps the most apt description of 'Ostro'.

Whilst the duo work from a shared vision that places keen focus on stream-of-consciousness approaches or, as Valenti puts it “A prismatic panorama, or well, a BRAINMATIC PANORAMA!” there really is an ambiguity, an uncertainness and a sense of the unknown, the otherworldly and the mystical when traversing through the vast spheres of the record. The pair’s own descriptions of some of the album’s tracks are testament to the sprawling, shifting, mass of it all “Suicide and Oneida dancing together around a big campfire” – “Pagan post-punk!” – “a slow march for psychedelic warriors on the unknown planet” – “gospel-dub” – “A bad trip”. And a “trip” it certainly is, some records aim to exist by not coming from a particular place but to exist in the transitions and journeys in-between them. Be them real, mystical or imaginary, present or past, the focus is on the movement rather than the end destination and the Lay Llamas’ debut album 'Ostro' is most certainly one such record.

TRACK LISTING

01. Ancient People Of The Stars
02. We Are You
03. The Lay Llamas
04. Desert Of Lost Souls
05. Overmind
06. Archaic Revival
07. Something Wrong
08. In Search Of Plants
09. Voices Call