Four years on from Lay Llamas’ Rocket Recordings debut Østro, this Italian-based astral-voyaging collective, led by Nicola Giunta - have manifested a revelatory official follow-up in the form of Thuban - a travelogue powered by a pan-global fascination with rhythmic hypnosis and an unquenchable experimental mindset. Dwelling in the night sky of the Northern hemisphere, Thuban was the star closest to the North pole from the fourth to the second millennium BC. For Giunta. this mysterious stellar icon offers pause for thought. “A polar star is something that drives the travellers towards a safe place. But in the age we’re living now it seems hard to recognise a polar star.” Indeed, his mission has been as much one of discovery for himself and listener alike “Everything around us is transforming, always!

You know, I’m not a proper songwriter, I consider myself a sound crafter. An experimental alchemist of sounds and visions” True to form, Thuban maps out terrain in which collaborators from Clinic and Goat contribute to the air of earthy vibrancy and fertile exploration. Moreover, Mark Stewart of The Pop Group’s spoken-word contributions to the searing ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ (styled by Nicola as ‘dystopian afrobeat’) steers the album to new pinnacles of intensity informed by science fiction yet with explicitly political force “Thuban talks about ancient sea travels, ancient cultures, ancient rites, but also about today’s travellers, travellers from all ages” Nicola surmises “Travellers that are still looking for their Thuban, for their polar star to reach a safe place to live with their family.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's pretty baggy this, so i'm just going to say this like it's Andy's words 'Eyy, it's proper good this lykk'

Ranging from swaying, swaggering psychedelic indie to pulsating, hypnotic grooves, Lay Llamas have crafted a wonderfully fascinating journey, a joy from beginning to end. (that bit wasn't as Andy)

FORMAT INFORMATION

Indies Exclusive LP Info: Indies exclusive incandescent orange colour vinyl.

VED are another amazing Swedish band you have probably never heard of. With 3 albums, 2 EPs and a compilation on labels like Höga Nord and Adrian Recordings already behind them, VED are the latest Swedish band, following on from Goat, Josefin Öhrn, Hills and Flowers Must Die to release their exploratory music on Rocket Recordings. The Malmö 5 piece are famed for creating trance inducing, repetitive, psych. Their ever evolving sound has always taken in many global influences, from Middle Eastern to African to the repetitive explorations of composers like Steve Reich and Terry Riley. DDTT is a two track EP that at it’s core is exploring the art of repetition, with each track surpassing the 12 minute mark.

The song DDTT itself is centered around a series of monotonous African rock sounding drum patterns, plucked guitar riffs that overlap at varying speeds, all building to an intoxicating sound that juxtaposes itself as well as locking into a tight groove. As the track builds, layer upon layer of bowed cymbals collide with tight percussion and a minimalist bass line straight out of Holger Czukay’s handbook. Sheets of bowed drones reminiscent of Tony Conrad are at the core of second track Det långa straffet. The ritual looping of fluttering live drums, palpitating bass, trace and retrace repetitively within the carousel of grooves. Climaxing are sound rousing heavy horns, the whole piece gratifyingly serves as a brute force repetitive handprint of human intent. DDTT is an EP for the fans of the new Polish scene and the constantly excellent Instant Classic Records, and the minimal electronica explorations by Chicago acts like Joshua Abrams and Bitchin Bajas

Is Let it Burn the greatest Goat track the band have ever made? The band think it is the best song they have written. The label have not stopped going on about it since they heard it. And now you can listen to Let it Burn when it is released as a ltd edition 7” single on 25 May.

Let it Burn was written specifically for the climatic scene in the short movie Killing Gävle, a The Guardian produced film directed by the very talented Joe Fletcher about the famous Gävle Goat in Sweden which every year local custodians of Gävle try to protect a giant straw goat that is built for the town every Christmas being burnt down by mischievous pagans. Obviously Goat’s music was the obvious to soundtrack the film – their back catalogue is used throughout the film but up to now it was the only place you could hear a segment of the 6 minute+ fuzz groove of Let it Burn but now thanks to Rocket Recordings it can be heard in all its glory. Not only that, but you get a brand new b-side, and like most recent Goat b-sides it reveals another exploratory sound to the bands‘world music’. Friday Pt.1 is a 4 minute excerpt from an organically evolving, cosmic-jazz, studio jam. The ltd 7” comes in 4 exclusive colours; 'purple' vinyl, ‘yellow flame’ vinyl, ‘orange flame’ vinyl and ‘red flame vinyl’ and these will be randomly distributed around the world. 

Whether congregating in dimly lit halls or in forests, and whether mediated by e-mailed audiofiles or infiltrating darker realms of consciousness, mysterious forces are being channelled by a shifting collective intent on psychic communion by any means necessary. Bonnacons of Doom’s identities may be shrouded and hidden in the live arena, yet the force of their vibrations - as captured on the unearthly vibrations and unholy revelations of their self-titled Rocket Recordings debut - is gloriously manifest. “From the beginning, we’ve been really interested in the transformative possibilities of music” explains Rob, one such Bonnacon. “How it has the power to make us and the audience at that particular moment into something else. In particular, we’ve tried to work with repetition, volume and texture rather than traditional song structures. Anything that produces a stasis that people can get lost in rather than following something in a linear or obvious way”  Whilst the line-up of Bonnacons of Doom has been known to morph with each undertaking, the prime movers in the principally Liverpoolbased collective endeavour have included members of Mugstar, Jarvis Cocker’s band and Youthmovies, donning robes and masks to sculpt altered states and subsume themselves to the ritual.

Recording mostly in single-takes and in the band’s trademark improvisational method at Suburban Home studios by its owner and Hookworms frontman MJ, this recorded incarnation of Bonnacons’ arcane conjury operates stubbornly free of genre, sashaying alongside psych-rock, repetitive drone and electronic experimentation whilst consumed by a devotional intensity that’s multiplied by the transcendental echoing of vocalist Kate. “I guess our environment is another key influence” reckons Rob. “We’re almost all from Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the landscape and mythology of the north is part of who we are. It’s darkness and beauty, the weirdness of its folk traditions, the independence of mind of its culture and the melancholy of its post-industrial grain. I think ultimately what we’re trying to achieve is a kind of Trans-Pennine hypnotic music.”

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP Info: LP In Die Cut Sleeve

Chapel Perilous exists whereby the supernatural converges with the everyday - whatever one’s definition of reality, this psychological realm serves to prove it endlessly subjective and changeable. Robert Anton Wilson may have laid claim to the modern use of this phrase - as in his 1977 tome ‘Cosmic Trigger’ - yet there can be few musical outfits in the here and now more worthy of carrying on its tradition than Gnod. In more than a decade on the planet this singular Salford-birthed entity have married intrepid musical exploration with psychic fearlessness - not to mention a tendency to leave any tag or bracket one attempts to place on them utterly redundant. In a sense, the latest adventure bearing this title evolved both from the lengthy European tour that the band embarked upon in the wake of their stripped-down and paint-stripping 2017 opus Just Say No The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine.

Yet recording in Supernova studio in Eindhoven under the auspices of Bob De Wit, the band found themselves free not only to lay down two tumultuous tracks that they had been honing and hammering into shape on the road - the pulverising fifteen-minute opener ‘Donovan’s Daughters’ and the bracingly brutal ‘Uncle Frank Says Turn It Down’ - but to sculpt more abstract material, utilising dubbed-out repetition, furious riff-driven rancour, bleak soundscapes and off-the-map experimentation to create an intimidating and invigorating tableau of dystopian dread and unflinching intensity. Always working purely on their own instincts and co-ordinates, Gnod’s pathway into unchartered territory continues to move firmly on with nary a care for the sanity of anyone in their surroundings. Chapel Perilous is a still more indomitable chapter in a transcendental travelogue from an iconoclastic institution that only gathers momentum with the passing of time. Wherever Gnod go in 2018 and beyond, expect reality to be reinvented anew, whatever the consequences

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Gnod once again ripping everyone a new one with a heady mix of metallic drone, psychedelic ambience and visceral spoken-word musings, incisive cut-throat guitar lines and hypnotic scree. Classic, unbelievable Gnod. Killer.

Debut album by MIEN, the exciting new four piece band comprised of The Black Angels’ Alex Maas, The Horrors’ Tom Furse, Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir and The Earlies’ John-Mark Lapham. The seeds were sown for this collaboration as long ago as 2004, when Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone) found himself in a chance encounter with Black Angels frontman Alex Maas whilst performing sitar with his former band on a bill at SXSW in Austin with The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Not long afterwards, he would also stumble across electronics guru and producer John Mark Lapham from Anglo-American band The Earlies, via a shared love for one song - the ‘classic sitar banger’ by The Association, ‘Wantin’ Ain’t Gettin’.

Some years later, another piece of the puzzle came into place, when Dhir was now playing bass with The Black Angels in 2012, and found the band sharing several bills with The Horrors. Thus he made the acquaintance of Tom Furse, and yet another pact was made to work together. Several traversals of the globe by both plane and audio-file later, the result is an album that sees this quartet transcending their origins whilst maintaining a cohesive unity borne of a desire for outward exploration.

John Mark’s vision, as he puts it, was “imagine the Black Angels as Nico in her 80’s industrial phase mixed with George Harrison and Conny Plank.” - true to form, it’s an album that finds equal room for radiant groove-based propulsion and ambient dreamscapes alike - as comfortable with the murky hallucinogenic voyage of ‘You Dreamt’ as the powerful widescreen sweep of ‘(I’m Tired Of) Western Shouting’, yet with songwriting acumen as potent as the production values are expansive and exploratory. This may have been a record put together at a distance - yet the chemistry between these four figures is manifest amidst a kaleidoscopic series of atmospheres and excursions whereby the fertile songwriting of the golden age of ‘60s psychedelia is transmitted into a transcendental realm above and beyond the second decade of the 21st century. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It would be impossible to imagine a better line-up than these four veterans of psych and indie-rock, and the product of their hard work is every bit as brilliant as you'd imagine. Fuzzy-headed psychedelic swirls, thumping percussion and chugging, kosmische riffs.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: "Deep Mien" coloured vinyl.

In the near-twenty year period of Rocket Recordings’ existence, its ethos has expanded in untold directions, yet always with the destruction of boundaries and the expansion of consciousness high on the agenda. Nonetheless, the original spirit of the label remains a universe that revolves around the twin planets of Fuzz and Wah - the mind-frying six-string duality that warps sound spectrums and overheats speaker cones in pursuit of reckless sensory overload.

What’s more, few guitarists have been richer exponents of just these two ingredients than Paul Allen, who not only appeared on the very first Rocket 7” of 1998 with The Heads, but who also fronts Anthroprophh, an outfit who take both garage-bound filth and wayward, abstract artistry to zones beyond comprehension. ‘OMEGAVILLE’ - the third release on Rocket for this power trio alongside bassist Gareth Turner and drummer Jesse Webb - lives up to its name in driving just such demented predilections into head-spinning chaos. Structured by Allen’s admission akin to Can’s ‘Tago Mago’, this is a cliff-edge into sanity-risking overload which has much in common with the glory days of 1971- the Nurse-With-Wound list realm of record-collector gold where heavy rock, nascent prog and wilfully art-damaged netherscapes thrived. OMEGAVILLE’ finds equal space for everything-on-11 riffage of a distinctly Stoogian/stygian stripe, bracing musique concrete, Butthole Surfers-esque bedlam, Chrome-style sci-fi noise-pop, surreal British humour, and what sounds essentially like a ‘60s NASA HQ going up in flames.

At the forefront of much of this, however, is Allen’s guitar playing itself - taking Hendrix and Asheton-esque shapes and warping them beyond recognition into new paradigms. Who’s to say exactly where Anthroprophh move on from this guileless aural endtime mission. Yet ‘OMEGAVILLE - in the tradition of most great out-rock and psych-noise - feels very much like a foot placed firmly on the accelerator in search of dimensions unknown - a liminal zone where fuzz and wah transcend space and time

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Thrashing, manic distortion, full-force psychedelia and thumping, heavy AF percussion. Anthroprophh are back.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Limited green and black double entropy swirl vinyl.

For the uninitiated, the Austin based band Shit & Shine have been creating mutant, repetitive, technofied noise for labels such as Mego, Riot Season, Gang Signs, Load and the afore mentioned Diagonal since 2004. It is always hard to describe exactly what each Shit & Shine release sounds like as they are a band who treats each record as it’s own entity and so their sound changes dependant on their mood at the time of making it, but whatever that mood is, it will always be something thrilling and uniquely original. The three tracks on ‘That’s Enough’ EP (that clock in at just under 40 minutes) ‘sort of’ sound like what would happen if The Necks got trapped in a lift with the Butthole Surfers and Schwefelgeb for 12 hours. And after they manage to get out, the Australian 3-piece return to their studio to discover their instruments have been stolen and replaced by some fuzzy synths and a laptop - the resulting music they would make could possibly sound something like this...or in fact, maybe nothing like this? 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The return of everyone's favourite cough-syrup swillin', venue-wreckin', speaker bustin' Texans and they're sounding as fierce as ever! Run for cover!

When the masked Swedish collective Goat toured Europe in the Autumn of 2016 to promote their then recently released third album Requiem - the band came up with the idea to record every show. On returning back to their home town of Korpilombolo, Goat painstakingly went through all the recordings and have to picked out 6 tracks to be released on for limited live album Fuzzed in Europe.

Goat picked these 6 tracks in particular as they are different versions to what is found on the releases the songs originally came from and the band liked the idea that these versions are documented onto vinyl. Goat’s live reputation is second to none – since their first public shows in 2012 they have stunned audiences across the globe. The bands brand of dancable, tribal psychedelia is guaranteed to create mass hysteria from the wanting crowds – Goat know how to create music that is made for the ‘head’ as well as the ‘body’.

There are rumours of Goat disappearing into the hills – that they have hung up their masks now for good and have slipped away as quietly as they arrived on to the scene. Whether this is true or not, we don’t know, but even if they have or have not disbanded from public view, this is a great document of their immersive power to cherish, it celebrates band completely at the top of their game. The eye popping beautiful artwork for Fuzzed in Europe was created by the great poster artist Adam Pobiak – who has worked with everyone from Soundgarden to the Justice and Swans to Flaming Lips.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's not a goat release goes by without me learning of a new 'Colour' to press vinyl on. This particular one is no different, I've never seen the flavours of an after eight represented in vinyl colour (minty green, chocolatey brown) before, but here it is. Why mention the music? You know it's insanely good, and you get the beautiful design to go along with it. A++

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Indie stores only green/black splatter vinyl. Limited to just 2000 copies worldwide.

Despite almost all bands being prone to painting themselves as frontier-hurdling mavericks who provoke extreme reactions in their audience, the fact is that the vast majority of them of them wont produce little more than bland indifference or benign acceptance in whichever audience they come into contact with, Not so Housewives, the London-based outfit whose psychic charge- equal parts brittle rhythmic drive, angular contortions and monochrome minimalism - is as punishing in approach as the band are enigmatic in aspect.

‘FF061116’, which follows in the wake of their debut ‘Work’ (released on Hands in The Dark) and previous tapes and 7” releases (on Faux Discs and Blank Editions), the band shows no sign of compromise whatsoever, being as stark, harsh and stubbornly inhospitable as the strobe-haunted, feverishly kinetic live shows that have earned them a fearsome reputation beyond the rumoured West country of their origins or the urban environs of their adopted home. Split into seven excerpts and built on powerful repetition, it’s a mind-melding travail into abstraction and abjection which draws on post-punk, jazz, drone, electronic and avant-garde tropes to create an unclassifiable assault that feels oddly timeless - innovative, invigorating and bare-boned yet tapping into a uniquely English lineage that extends back to the 1970s and forward, into the unknown.

Nonetheless, whilst some may be able to detect influences like This Heat (whose Charles Hayward approvingly described their sound as redolent of “a barely controlled anger, hypnotic and building from the simplest elements”) or Einsturzende Neubauten, Housewives are carving out their own unique place in the darker quarters of the underground, motivated by a fearsome intensity of conviction and a fearlessly experimental approach. ‘FF061116’ is the latest in a series of transmissions from a collective mindset whose manifestations are as richly rewarding as they are relentlessly intense. Wherever they go from this aural outpost, all intrepid avant adventurers would do well to buckle in for the ride.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clanging dissonance, slamming lo-fi drums and otherworldly sonic squeals. Filled with attitude, and raw unadulterated power, but delicately accentuated with jazzy flourishes and a plethora of aural curveballs.

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2012

For those who are unaware, Goat are a collective of musicians who hail from a small and very remote village called Korpolombolo in deepest darkest Sweden.

Legend has it that for centuries, the inhabitants of the village of Korpolombolo were dedicated to the worship and practices of Voodoo. This strange and seemingly unlikely activity was apparently introduced into the area after a travelling witch doctor and a handful of her disciples were led to Korpolombolo by following a cipher hidden within their most sacred of ancient scriptures. The reason it led them there is unknown, but their Voodoo influence quickly took hold over the whole village and so they made it their home - there, they were able to practice their craft unnoticed and unbothered for several centuries.

This was until their non-Christian ways were discovered by the Church and they were burned out by the crusaders, the survivors cursing the village over their shoulders as they fled. To this day, the now picturesque village of Korpolombolo is still haunted by this Voodoo curse; the power of the curse can be felt throughout the grooves of this Goat record.

The nine track album follows the underground success of the now sought after 7” Goatman, which is also included in this selection. The band takes in many influences, from the Afro groove that is central to the album, through to head nodding psych, post-punk, turkish rock, kraut repetition and astral folk.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Back in February 2012 we stocked an intriguing 7” called “Goatman” from a mysterious Swedish group called Goat, we loved its wacked out voodoo psych and judging by sales so did our customers, but little did it prepare us for the amazing debut album that followed seven months later under a shroud of myth and mystery.

The story surrounding the group is becoming the stuff of mystical legend; Goat, according to their press release, are from a remote village called Korpolombolo in deepest darkest Sweden, the tale of the place being that the inhabitants were dedicated to the worship and practices of Voodoo after a travelling witch doctor stayed there a few centuries ago. The band itself is believed to be a collective of local musicians who have been recording music under the name of Goat for the past 30 or 40 years, this being the first incarnation of the group that’s ever released anything for the outside world to share. Of course whether this epic fantasy tale is true remains debatable, but in reality it really doesn’t matter when their musical output is this good.

After the debut 7” we naturally expected “World Music” to be an album full of heavy psychedelic mantras, but what we got was something more mind-blowing - a loose melting pot of afro-voodoo-beat rhythms, blistering psyche guitar freakouts, kosmische drenched metronomy, and post-punk funkiness. It’s at times poppy and accessible (the 3 minute “Run To Your Mama” could grace the top of the charts in any other parallel universe) and at other times raw with an underground swagger, but what really hits you full-on is the spontaneous energy and sassy fun of the album. Think Funkadelic meets Spacemen 3 meets Fela Kuti meets Can meets ESG. It’s an album that’s done pretty much the impossible and united all tastes behind the counter here at Piccadilly, we all absolutely love it, and so will you!

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Limited edition 'colour in colour' psych vinyl in a die cut sleeve. Nice!

LP Info: Repress in a die-cut sleeve.

CD Info: Price drop for a limited period only! In a special die-cut slipcase.

Hey Colossus have undergone a spectacular metamorphosis in the last three years - the 2015 Rocket Recordings double-drop of ‘In Black And Gold’ and ‘Radio Static High’ displayed not only a band with a work rate to put most all their contemporaries to shame, but one arriving at an atmospheric and rewarding sound with as much flair for the beguiling as the barbaric. Changes may have been afoot in the Hey Colossus camp, yet their latest transmission ‘The Guillotine’ marks another peak for an innovative force in the realm of heavy amplification. Darker and more brooding than their recent work, it’s also perhaps their most richly melodic to date - the interplay of their three guitar lineup has never sounded more fluent than on these eight songs, nor their songcraft more well-defined.

This is a record whose alchemical charge arrives from a reinvention of loud rock shapes into forms both feral and fresh - whilst Hey Colossus can still bludgeon with overamped vigour, as on the hypnotic and devastating krautrock-Jesus-Lizard hybrid of ‘Back In The Room’ they can also deliver the dusky and haunting waltz-time serenade of ‘Calenture Boy’ with uncompromising fortitude, with the new-found confidence and allure of Paul Sykes’ vocals at the forefront. These menacing and immersive songs chronicle a band exploring a unique sound and invigorating approach in a decade in which cliches and genre pieces in the realm of the psychedelic have frequently surrounded - here the six-piece find themselves transcending the limitations of the underground scene from whence they came, whilst exposing the paucity of inspiration in much of the guitar-rock mainstream. Hey Colossus are at their sharpest, and none will survive ‘The Guillotine’. 

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2017 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Goat release an unreleased edit of the track Goatfuzz – one of the stand out tracks off their latest album 'Requiem' as a special ltd edition 7" for Record Store Day. The Bside of the 7" is a brand new track, entitled Goatfizz which once again shows another side to the bands take on 'world music'. The 2 colour 'splatter vinyl' 7" is ltd to 2,000 copies and will only be available on Record Store Day – these tracks will not be made available on digital formats.

Ask many self-styled music aficionados, and they’ll tell you that rock in the early to mid ‘70s descended into a mire of boundless self-indulgence and instrumental virtuosity. Not so in Sweden. For there, the egalitarian spirit that many thought revolutionary to punks in the UK was nothing new for the heads to be found enjoying the cult Swedish psychedelia of bands like Träd, Gräs och Stenar or Älgarnas Trädgård.

It’s exactly this lineage forty plus years later where one can find Flowers Must Die, the six-piece Swedish outfit whose ‘Kompost’ - their full-length debut on Rocket Recordings, home of Goat and Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation - is a landmark moment for an outfit pursuing an improvisation based approach removed from the codified realm of contemporary psych, and exploring uncanny and unhinged territory fuelled by diverse record collections yet unique to their own collective headspace. The band may have taken their name originally from an Ash Ra Tempel song, whilst both the strains of Amon Düül II and the repetition of Can lurk within these overgrown sonic pathways.

Yet ‘Kompost’ shows them honing their improvisatory excursions into coherent songcraft amidst spectral techno and cosmic disco shapes, as the angular post-punk pop of The Sugarcubes sits alongside the narcotic clangour of prime Royal Trux, and one-take spontaneity locks horns with nocturnal revelation. Here the outward-looking spirit of 1971 and the anything-goes mentality of the Scandinavian freaks of yore is transposed elegantly to a modern era in need of new horizons, and in a manner refreshingly bereft of retro chic. What’s more, who’s to say what dimensions this alchemical force have yet to explore.

Considering the current political climate, Gnod's newest outing was never going to be a particularly cheery affair. 'Just Say No To The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine' is indeed political, it is wrought and angry, and it installs everything you would expect from a Gnod album, and adds to it exponentially. 'Bodies For Money' sets out as a state of intent from the off with a screaming pillar of feedback before launching headfirst into a barrage of percussion and punishing guitar. Settling slightly to leave sonic headroom for an angry muted voice is as symbolic as it is effective, giving the impression of fighting against the tide of noise and crushing weight of the background. 

'People' begins much more unceremonoiusly, pitching a looped vocal abstraction against rich and guttoral bass guitar and driving percussion. More akin to the aggressive Krautrock of their earlier years, but injected with a satisfying grit and industrious drive. The vocal segments are layered and amplified, giving the impression of a growing force speaking towards one end. This is music for protest, a soundtrack for forced disillusionment, a call to arms and it is as rousing as it is brilliant. 

The clanging of 'Paper Error' quickly becomes one of the more melodic points on the album, eschewing vocal snippets and ambient swells for a deft stoner-rock passage, before twisting and tunring into a rawkous and molten grinding thump. It's towering conclusion is inched upon you, like a frog boiling in water without jumping out. 

'Real Man' is rich in thunderous sub-bass, and propelled by galloping drums and a snarling monologue half-sung about our hero, the man in a dirty grey suit with a bag full of beers. Claging old-school punk littered with instrumental passages and cataclysmic breakdowns, screaming and feedback twisted and rolled into a voracious wall of noise and force. 

The epic closer 'Stick In The Wheel' grows from a vocal refusal of convention, accompanied by rhythmic guitar stabs and dark-ambient synth work, the constantly propulsive and militaristic rhythm perfectly befits the conventions of the previous numbers, acting as an anchor for the political tumult that preceeds it, before breaking down into a psychedelic and metallic distillation of rage into an eastern-tinged opium den percussive head-nodder. 

A driven and direct assault on the troubles of today, and a bold, bracing barrage of musical magma. Caustic, loud and captivating to the end. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brilliance as ever from Manchester noise-rock-drone-psych stalwarts Gnod. Brilliantly musical, stunningly direct and absolutely unmissable.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Red vinyl edition.

In a culture obsessed with content, saturation, and continual exposure, it’s rare to find artists who prefer to lurk outside of the public eye. Thomas Pynchon is perhaps the most notable contemporary recluse—a virtually faceless figure who occasionally creeps out of hiding to offer up an elaborate novel steeped in history and warped by imagination—but for crate diggers and guitar mystics, Sweden’s enigmatic GOAT may qualify as the greatest modern pop-culture mystery. Who are these masked musicians? Are they truly members of the Arctic community of Korpilombolo? Are their songs part of their isolated communal heritage? Their third studio album, Requiem, offers more questions than answers, but much like any of Pynchon’s knotty yarns, the reward is not in the untangling but in the journey through the labyrinth.

Western exports may have dominated the consciousness of international rock fans for the entirety of the 20th century, but our increasing global awareness has unearthed a treasure trove of transcendental grooves and spellbinding riffage from exotic and remote corners of the planet. GOAT’s previous albums World Music and Commune were perfect testaments to this heightened awareness, with Silk Road psychedelia, desert blues, and Third World pop all serving as governing forces within the band’s sound. But GOAT’s strange amalgam isn’t some cheap game of cultural appropriation—it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact origins of the elusive group’s sound. The fact that they pledge allegiance to a spot on the periphery of our maps bolsters the nomadic quality of their sonic explorations. With Requiem, GOAT continue to rock and writhe to a beat beholden to no nation, no state.

GOAT’s only outright declaration for Requiem is that it is their “folk” album, and the album is focused more on their subdued bucolic ritualism than psilocybin freakouts. But GOAT hasn’t completely foregone their fiery charms—tracks like “All-Seeing Eye” and “Goatfuzz” conjure the sultry heathen pulsations that ensnared us on their previous albums.

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of Requiem comes with the closing track “Ubuntu”. The song is little more than a melodic delay-driven electric piano line, until we hear the refrain from “Diarabi”—the first song on their first album—sneak into the mix. It creates a kind of musical ouroboros—an infinite cycle of reflection and rejuvenation, death and rebirth. Much like fellow recluse Pynchon, rather than offering explanations for their strange trajectories, GOAT create a world where the line between truth and fiction is so obscured that all you can do is bask in their cryptic genius.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Goat return with their most confident and resplendent outing yet. Grooving, psychedelic strings and traditional other-worldly instrumentation. Careering towards surf-rock splendour in parts (Trouble In The Streets) and full-on freak-out jam sessions. This is a varied and perfectly measured addition to the magnificent oeuvre of these talented musicians.

Mine says: Psychedelic world music collective Goat are a favourite among Piccadilly staff and customers alike so it doesn't come as a surprise that their new album has made it into our end of year chart. What might come as a surprise is to hear the word accessible in connection with the band but Goat's third long player 'Requiem' is certainly their lightest and most approachable to date. The afro beats that dominated 'World Music' and the acid rock elements featured on 'Commune' make way for 60s inspired, pan flute accompanied catchy folk songs. Unlike its predecessors, 'Requiem' sounds unhurried and cheerful and has a laid-back feel to it. It is a complex but dynamic outing that sees the band heading into a new direction without losing their unique sound of otherworldly tribal grooves and voodoo sing-alongs. As Goat themselves say, "all music is world music and all other genres are old fashioned".

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: **** LAST COPY EVER ****
Ultra limited "psych" yellow/red coloured vinyl edition.

2xIndies Exclusive LP Info: Indie store exclusive orange double vinyl.

2xIndies Exclusive LP includes MP3 Download Code.

In an era in which ‘psychedelia’ can often mean merely a grab-bag of influences from which wah-wah pedals and two-note riffs are dispensed as signifiers and signposts into a realm of easy accessibility as opposed to gateways to another dimension, it can be a rarity to come across a band who are genuinely fixated on creating alternate realities for the listener. Yet this is exactly how Stockholm’s Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation view their incandescent art, and it’s this sensibility that’s led to the kaleidoscopic spendour of their debut full-length for Rocket Recordings, ‘Horse Dance’.

The last twelve months have seem a dramatic rise to prominence for The Liberation (who take their band name from the Tibetan Book Of The Dead) with their EP ‘Diamond Waves’ leading to shows in their homeland with Goat and Les Big Byrd, a nomination for a Swedish Grammy as best newcomer, and rapturously received appearances at festivals like Roskilde. These adventures have set the stage for a spectacular movement into the unknown from their earlier work. ‘Horse Dance’ is a razorsharp collection of ditties that marry dreamlike radiance with hypnotic rhythmic drive, set alight by a prismatic experimental glow. It inhabits a realm in which a propulsive ‘60s-tinged pop song like ‘Sunny Afternoon’ can be elevated skyward with krautrock-tinged repetition, dub echo and analogue curlicues alike, and one in which a Broadcast-style mantra like ‘You Have Arrived’ can tap into a psychic lineage that stretches all the way from The United States Of America to Portishead’s ‘Third’. Yet whilst ghosts of the like of Laika, Cat’s Eyes and The Creatures may lurk in the darker recesses of these songs, this is a band paying no homage to bygone glories.

The Liberation cite a myriad influences in both their philosophical stance and their aesthetic, from 12th century iconoclasts like Milarepa to 20th century sonic voyagers like Catherine Ribeiro, and from Kandinsky’s abstract expressions of synaesthesia to the avant-jazz of Moondog. Yet at all times their transcendental extrapolations are married to icy and enticing melodic flourishes, making for a revitalising clash between the chic and the transcendental, and a sound as biting as it is beatific. With ‘Horse Dance’, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation step into a world where all such restrictions and taboos are null and void, and this journey is already proving quite the spectacle to behold. 

In the last decade, the iconoclastic four-pronged force of Teeth Of The Sea has traversed from its origins in North London pub gigs and basement rehearsal rooms to far-flung locales that its members could scarcely have considered possible when they first began. Yet this band has never lost sight of its original vision - to reconcile a fearless experimental drive with a primal lust for noise. To exist outside of all or any compromise. Yet never to lose sight of the crucial irreverence of their inception. Their fourth album ‘Highly Deadly Black Tarantula’, in all its malevolent glory, may well be the apex of their mission thus far. Following in the wake of the release of their mind-melting third album ‘MASTER’’.

2014 was a bizarre and thrilling year for Teeth Of The Sea, taking them to unexpected territory both physical and metaphysical - a re-imagining of the modern-day midnight movie A Field In England saw performances at both Cork Film Festival and Hackney Picture House, and was released on Rocket Recordings on a limited run for Record Store Day. A new audio-visual piece The Last Man was performed at both Cineglobe Festival in Cern, home of the Large Hadron Particle Collider, and at Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj-Napoca. What’s more, the band travelled to America for the first time to perform in Austin, Texas for SXSW and to Portugal for Milhoes De Festa, as well as finishing the year off with a comprehensive demolition job of Liverpool Psych Fest.However, as 2015 dawned, the band set about reinventing themselves once again - both returning from the ornate and expansive sounds of ‘MASTER’ to their gnarled roots and pushing firmly forward in search of adventure anew.

What resulted was ‘Highly Deadly Black Tarantula’, their most focused and aggressive album yet. Machine-driven yet melodically abundant, the widescreen industrial expanses of this album combine the influence of long-time band favourites like Aphex Twin, Angelo Badalamenti and Throbbing Gristle with new inspiration that spans from Chicago footwork to black metal. What’s more, it’s a collection as rich in scope as it is powerful in intent. Whilst the pummelling and incisive ‘Animal Manservant’ and the kinetic dancefloor attack of ‘Field Punishment’ maintain an audial assault both concise and corrosive, the monomaniacal ‘Have You Ever Held A Bird Of Prey’ represents a fearless plunge into the experimental deep end. Elsewhere, the bleak cinematic drama of ‘All My Venom’ strikes like hammer to anvil, and ‘Love Theme For 1984’ may be the most richly emotive work the band have yet created. This is no less than a vital reinvention, abusing technology and warping convention to arrive at a monochrome psychedelia as stylish as it is savage. Yet even whilst ushering in delight and deliverance for both fans of this band and the uninitiated, ‘HIghly Deadly Black Tarantula’- a fearsomely coherent assault of post-everything dementia - sounds like no-one but Teeth Of The Sea.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Teeth of the sea return with this, their newest album for Rocket Recordings. Switching from dusty samples to pared-back industrial synth loops, via ambient celestial excursions. The band are (probably partially due to their recent work on the brilliant 'A Field In England' soundtrack) in more of an ambient and filmic tip here, focusing on the droney-fringe aspects of electronica, but this makes it all the more hard-hitting when the 'Drop' comes. (fourth track, Have You Ever Held A Bird Of Prey is a prime example of this. Four minutes of pulsing synth ambience, then BAM - '94 era NIN) surprising and excellent in equal measure.

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.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Independent retailers exclusive coloured vinyl (red and blue splatter) edition, also includes a bonus 7"!!!

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.

In August 2012 Swedish band Goat released their debut album, World Music.The record went on to become one of the most talked about albums of the year, topping the Piccadilly ‘Best of 2012’ list and the following year, the band took the album on the road. Starting off a triumphant year of shows was Goat’s performance (or Ritual as the band likes to call them) at Roadburn Festival. A ‘packed to the rafters’ performance was the perfect warm up to their first proper tour, that saw them take on the USA.

Footage, audio and photos of their sold out US shows streamed across the internet and revealed a band at the top of their powers. They had taken the magic of World Music, extended, psyched out and explored the groove of the album further representing it in a mesmerising live performance. The bods at Rocket realised that they needed to capture and document this much hyped set for all the world to experience. On July 27th 2013, the eve of their now legendary Glastonbury performances the band took the stage at Camden’s Electric Ballroom in London to celebrate the recent launch of their single ‘Stonegoat’.

The show was incendiary; the 1,100+ crowd either danced furiously to the band’s psyched grooves or stood there, mouths open and gazed in awe at the spectacle they couldn’t believe they were witnessing. It truly was a band on top of their game, which this LP called Live Ballroom Ritual will forever prove. Goat went on to wow more people across Europe when their on stage rituals visited the cream of the summer festivals at Primavera, Roskilde, Flow, Way out West etc. After a long but successful summer the band are now back in Korpilombolo, writing the follow up to 'World Music'. We hope to see the first fruits of this at December’s appearance at the last ever ATP festival curated by Loop, and at the official launch party of this live album at London’s Koko on December 2nd.

FORMAT INFORMATION

CD Info: Price drop for a limited period only!

Gnod’s Chaudelande Vol 1 & 2 vinyl only albums on Tamed Records (tamedrecords.com) have become a thing of infamy as two of the greatest slabs of beat driven, shamanistic space noise to of been released over the past few years and we at Rocket Recordings are proud to announce that we have brought these two mammoth LPs together for the first time on CD and download.

The collective that is Gnod has risen out of the DIY ethic of Manchester’s Islington Mill. Central to the ethic is alternative approach to musical creativity and freedom of expression with no regard to established opinions. Gnod is a state of mind. Those who seek Gnod, will find Gnod, the universe is centred on neither the earth nor the sun. It is centred on Gnod.Recorded in Studio Chaudelande, France, ‘Chaudelande’ takes Gnod’s convulsive vision, straps on electrodes, charges the amps, then overstimulates the vital organs as a torrent of contorted sounds akin to the likes of Pil, Hawkwind, and the Butthole Surfers lignite like an arc-flash repetitive blaze.

The epic pilgrimage that is Chaudelande will take the listener on a ride through the narrow chinks of the cavernous mind in the frenzied spirit of This Heat, Sunburned Hand of Man and the repetitive beats of Krautrock via Wax Trax.So come join the cult that is Gnod’s ‘Chaudelande’ as once again the band deliver another jolt to the unsound mind..