TERRY REID – The Other Side Of The River
– Remastered from the original analog tapes
– Track notes by Terry Reid
– 6 never before heard Reid compositions, plus 5 very different alternate takes – all previously unreleased.
British musician Terry Reid is a relatively unsung legend. With his incredible voice (that earned him the nickname “Superlungs”), spot- on songwriting, and underrated guitar skills, Reid invented new sounds and others followed suit. His 1973 LP, River, is an under-the- radar but deeply loved album. Our special new release, The Other Side Of The River, features all previously unreleased material from the River sessions, including six never-before-heard Reid compositions and five very different alternate takes of tracks from River.
Over the decades, as River went in and out of print, there were rumors of a mythological double album’s worth of unreleased material. The rumors turned out to be true, as the entire album was recorded twice: once with British producer Eddy Offord and again with the legendary Tom Dowd. The sessions captured Reid’s free-associative mix of folk, blues, rock, jazz, bossa-nova, soul, and samba, recalling at times Tim Buckley and Van Morrison, while featuring some remarkable guests including Gilberto Gil on percussion, Ike & Tina Turner’s Ikettes on vocals, and David Lindley, of psych band Kaleidoscope, on violin.
The Other Side Of The River includes songs that even Terry had forgotten – rockers in the style of the River track “Dean,” Latin grooves with percussionist Willie Bobo, and beautifully sparse vocal material not unlike David Crosby’s If Only I Could Remember My Name and John Martyn’s Solid Air.
Reid’s vocal prowess earned him offers to front both Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but he turned down both opportunities to carve out a distinctive solo career. Instead, he rocked on the sidelines, ultimately touring with Cream and Fleetwood Mac, writing songs for CSNY, and opening for The Rolling Stones on their 1969 tour.
More recently, Terry’s songs have been covered by a number of younger artists including the Raconteurs, and his voice can be heard on DJ Shadow’s track “Listen”. This spring he will be touring the East Coast and U.K. Though his “superlungs” would have no doubt served Zepp well, perhaps his solo status allowed him to be more experimental and nuanced than he would’ve been able to be as a mainstream frontman, and for that we are grateful.
The Other Side Of The River stands alone as a fresh and utterly groundbreaking Terry Reid gem.
JOSEFIN OHRN AND THE LIBERATION / GNOOMES REPETITIONS EP
Sweden’s Josefin Ohrn and The Liberation and Russia’s Gnoomes released two outstanding albums at the tail end of 2015, and Rocket Recordings are pleased to be bringing you this special split EP entitled ‘Repetitions’. Josefin Ohrn and The Liberation’s side starts with a radio edit of their live favorite ‘Green Blue Fields’ – a great slice of psychedelic disco pop that calls to mind a psyched out Blondie’s ‘Heart of glass’. Then for the first time on vinyl ‘Lucid Sapphire’ – a punked up, motorik driven, rock stomper that first appeared as the b-side of their digital only single ‘Sunday Afternoon’. The side is finished with a stunning cosmic-dance remix of their ‘hit’ single Take me Beyond by label mates Gnoomes. That leads us nicely into Gnoomes’s side which starts with ‘Myriads Of Bees’ – a new version of the track ‘Myriads’ which featured on their debut album ‘Ngan!’ This new version sees the band strip the song back to a minimal kosmiche pulse with repetitive mind altering effects. Then for the first time on vinyl the radio edit of their ‘hit’ single ‘Roadhouse’, this is the version of the track that got them noticed by countless BBC 6 Music DJs. Then the final track of the EP sees Josefin Ohrn and The Liberation return the ‘remix’ favour pushing the original motorik groove of ‘Roadhouse’ into an addictive heavy kraut groove beat, overlaying it with head spinning synths and fuzz guitar.
CAR SEAT HEADREST – TEENS OF DENIAL
‘Teens of Denial’ is the thirteenth album in Car Seat Headrest’s (aka 23-year-old Will Toledo) oeuvre, second on Matador, and first to be recorded in a proper studio with a full band and producer (Steve Fisk). On Denial, Toledo moves from bedroom pop to something approaching classic-rock grandeur and huge (if detailed and personal) narrative ambitions, with nods to the Cars, Pavement, Jonathan Richman, Wire, and William Onyeabor. By turns tender and caustic, empathetic and solipsistic, literary and vernacular, profound and profane, self-loathing and self-aggrandizing, he conjures a specifically 21st century mindset, a product of information overload, the loneliness it can foster, and the escape music can provide. At the heart of the album sits the 11:32 ‘Ballad of the Costa Concordia,’ which has more musical ideas than most whole albums (and at that length, it uses them all). Horns, keyboards, and elegant instrumental interludes set off art-garage moments; vivid vocal harmonies follow punk frenzy. The selfish captain of the capsized cruise liner in the Mediterranean in 2013 becomes a metaphor for struggles of the individual in society, as experienced by one hungover young man on the verge of adulthood.
2LP – Double Vinyl with Download.
TANYA DONELLY – SWAN SONG SERIES
Tanya Donelly is a singer-songwriter and founding member of three of the most successful bands of the post-punk era. At the age of 16, she and stepsister Kristin Hersh formed Throwing Muses, which became the first American band ever signed to the influential British label 4AD. Not only did the Muses‘ dreamy, swirling guitar sound prove highly influential on many of the alternative acts to emerge in their wake, but they also made any number of unprecedented advances into the male-dominated world of underground rock. Donelly later sidelined with Pixies bassist Kim Deal to form the Breeders, appearing on the debut LP, Pod. She later exited both the Breeders and Throwing Muses to form her own band, Belly. After issuing a pair of well-received EPs, Belly released their full-length debut, Star — a superb collection of luminous, fairy tale-like guitar pop songs — and for the first time in her career, Tanya Donelly earned commercial success commensurate to her usual critical accolades. Not only did the record go gold on the strength of the hit single ‘Feed the Tree’ but the band even garnered a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Donelly would eventually disband Belly to raise her two daughters. She still found time to write and record music as a solo artist – Beautysleep, Whiskey Tango Ghosts and This Hungry Life were all exceptional albums and enjoyed critical success. The Swan Song Series is a collection of songs in which Donelly collaborated with friends, musicians and authors such as Rick Moody, Robyn Hitchcock, John Wesley Harding, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang (Damon + Naomi/Galaxie 500), Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Tom Gorman (Belly), and Claudia Gonson (Magnetic Fields), and explored an impressive range that wasn’t always captured on previous albums. This exclusive collection includes the first 5 self-released digital EP’s and 7 brand new, previously unreleased, tracks on a 31 song set.
MUTUAL BENEFIT – Skip A Sinking Stone
‘Skip A Sinking Stone’, Mutual Benefit (aka Jordan Lee), is released via Transgressive Records.
This new album is a two-part meditation on impermanence that also acts as a portrait of growing up. Mutual Benefit’s work has been praised as being vulnerable and warmhearted. This release has a similar sensibility, patiently built from carefully chosen lines illustrated by lush astral folk and intricately composed arrangements that manage to appear effortless.
“I kept coming back to how nice that was, throwing these stones against the water,” says Lee. “I thought it was a fitting metaphor for the endeavours I have in my life – sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. I think it’s a good exercise in accepting impermanence and failure and these things that are constant, and yet the activity of skipping stones is really relaxing and beautiful.” Each stone ultimately sinks but, as Lee sings on the album’s zenith, as the cycle ends and repeats again, all we can do is maintain the hope that it’s ‘Not For Nothing’.
MOUNTAINS and RAINBOWS
Last summer, John Dwyer came back from an Oh Sees tour talking about a fantastic band he’d played with in Detroit called Mountains and Rainbows. What followed him home was a double-LP’s worth of shopworn weirdness and a delightfully loose attitude that must have something to do with the ecstasy of a Midwestern summer. These backyard freaks jam into the twilight, led by a vocal quaver belted to the cheap seats, a groove and a grin and a heaping spoonful of “damn, aren’t you glad we came out tonight?” Vibrant and confusing like the insane-o cover artwork that appears to be constructed of many layers of fluorescent duct tape.
Careening from the mellow chugger vibe on “How You Spend Your Time” to the tightly wound twitch of “Dying To Meet You,” Mountains and Rainbows stretch their legs deep into the strange, with a dark oddness lurking in the corners of tunes like weirdo highlight “With Beefheart.” Particles is a great addition to a little journey of one’s own, perhaps, and just in time for the sunlit afternoons to come.
FIR – SUMMER WASN’T THERE / WINTER DOESN’T CARE
Limited 7″ (200 copies) with CD (CD contains Stereo, Mono & Instrumental mixes), and digital download. We have 50 copies only !!! Alt pop super-group FIR combines the songwriting genius of Brent Rademaker from Beachwood Sparks and Matt Piucci from Rain Parade, with the extraordinary talents of Rob Campanella from The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Nelson Bragg from the Brian Wilson Band. On this record, the bittersweet combo is made complete by the smooth harmony vocals of the Allah-Las. Sounding something like a sugary, drugged out Beatles, FIR’s first 7″
METHYL ETHEL – OH INHUMAN SPECTACLE
New to 4AD, Australian trio Methyl Ethel’s celebrated debut album is being given a worldwide release. Hailing from the remote fringes of Perth in Western Australia, band linchpin Jake Webb – like 4AD peers Grimes and Bradford Cox before him – wrote, played and recorded everything on ‘Oh Inhuman Spectacle’.
Crafted in isolation, the album’s understated psychedelic pop quickly drew plaudits, leading Webb to recruit Chris Wright (drums) and Thom Stewart (bass) – friends from the tight-knit and thriving music scene in Perth – to help realise the songs live as a full-fledged band.
Having gained notable success in Australia including being nominated for the prestigious Australian Music Prize and taking Laneway Festival by storm, Methyl Ethel are now poised to take their music overseas with the worldwide release of ‘Oh Inhuman Spectacle’ and a huge run of touring in both Europe and North America to coincide.
Like a modern, indiefied iteration of Syd Barrett with the melodic intonations of the ghosts of post-punk. Woozy rhythms and fuzzed-out basses, twirling arpeggios meet chugging guitars and soaring strained vocal melodies. Definitely one to keep an eye on.
BRAIDS – COMPANION
Limited Copies come with a Arbutus Records Sampler CD. Braids are a three-piece experimental pop band from Montreal. In the spring of 2015 they released ‘Deep In The Iris’, their standout third record. ‘Companion’ is the band’s latest 4 track EP, written during the ‘Deep In The Iris’ sessions, and completed during a burst of creative energy in August 2015. Here Braids use the palette of ‘Deep In The Iris’ to paint decidedly different vistas – joy, disaffection, thunderous explosion to delicate introspection, the minimalistic power of ‘Companion’ to the patient blossoming of ‘Sweet World’. Distinct in their own right, these 4 songs are not to be dismissed as B-sides, outtakes, or the lesser of a group of songs. Though it uses ‘Deep In The Iris’ as a compositional guidepost, Companion is a breath-taking journey all of its own.
MANIC STREET PREACHERS – EVERYTHING MUST GO 20 Box Set
20 Year remastered anniversary of the classic Manics’ album ‘Everything Must Go’. In coming back after the disappearance of guitarist Richey Edwards, ‘Everything Must Go’ had to be special. Thankfully, the album shows extreme dignity in the face of adversity, with its big, Phil Spector-ish production and the pure lyrical perfection of ‘A Design For Life’ (the least patronising, most spot on discussion of the working class ever to reach number two in the charts). Richey Edward’s influence is still evident, as ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’ is a pit of despair, but it is much more subtle than anything on ‘The Holy Bible’, delicately comprised of James’ vocals and a harp. Their love of art and literature continues, referencing Sylvia Plath (‘The Girl Who Wanted To Be God’), war photographer Kevin Carter, and artist Willem De Kooning (on “Interiors”, surely one of Nicky Wire’s best bass parts since ‘La Tristesse Durera’). It’s little surprise that this was the album to finally shove the Manics into the mainstream.
2CD – Double CD remastered version comprising the remastered album and the Nynex Arena audio.
4LP / Box – Deluxe 12″ x 12″ box set containing the original album remastered by James Dean Bradfield and Tim Young on CD and 180 Gram vinyl. Plus Live At Nynex, the band’s legendary 1997 show available in its entirety for the very first time, and an exclusive new film about the album, ‘Freed From Memories’, directed by Kieran Evans. The single B sides and a 40 page book complete this stunning set. It includes
CD1 Everything Must Go remastered and B sides
CD2 B sides
DVD1 Live at Nynex
DVD2 Freed From Memories and A Design For Life / Everything Must Go/ Kevin Carter / Australia videos
180 Gram heavyweight vinyl ‘Everything Must Go’ remastered
40 page book
VARIOUS ARTISTS – DAY of the DEAD
A celebration of the Grateful Dead’s music, Day of the Dead was created and curated by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National.
For both Aaron and Bryce, the Grateful Dead were a gateway to playing music together; the first music the brothers investigated deeply. The two recall their first-ever jam session at 14 years old with The National’s future drummer Bryan Devendorf playing the Dead’s ‘Eyes of the World’ for several hours in Bryan’s attic in suburban Ohio. The brothers were drawn not just to the Dead’s songwriting, but also to the detail, spontaneity, and depth in the instrumentation. A life-long love affair with the Dead, shared with the Devendorfs, was born in those teenage years and crested when The National were invited to play a HeadCount.org fundraiser with Bob Weir in March 2012. The band assembled for this event learned over 25 Grateful Dead songs, and most of those players went on to form the “house band” heard on many of Day of the Dead’s tracks.
The compilation is a wide-ranging tribute to the songwriting and experimentalism of the Dead which took four years to record, and features over 60 artists from varied musical backgrounds, 59 tracks and is almost 6 hours long. Produced by Aaron Dessner, and co-produced by Bryce Dessner and Josh Kaufman, many of the tracks feature an all-star house band made up of Aaron, Bryce, fellow National bandmates and brothers Scott and Bryan Devendorf, Josh Kaufman, and Conrad Doucette along with Sam Cohen and Walter Martin. The record shows the broad reaching impact and legacy of the Grateful Dead, both culturally and musically.
Day of the Dead will be released digitally and on 5xCDs on May 20th. A limited edition vinyl boxed set will follow later in the year. All profits will help fight for AIDS / HIV and related health issues around the world through the Red Hot Organization. This is the 20th album of original music produced by Red Hot to further its mission and the follow up to 2009’s Dark Was The Night (4AD), a 32-track, multi-artist compilation also produced by Aaron and Bryce for Red Hot. Dark Was The Night has raised over $1.5 million to date for the organizations fighting AIDS to date.
MARISSA NADLER – STRANGERS
For more than 12 years Marissa Nadler has perfected her own take on the exquisitely sculpted gothic American songform. On her seventh full-length, Strangers, released 20th May on Bella Union , she has shed any self-imposed restrictions her earlier albums adhered to, stepped through a looking glass, and created a truly monumental work.
Today Nadler has shared “Janie in Love”, one of her most texturally rich songs to date and one that updates her signature sound with some of the most prominently featured drumming of her career. Her talent for powerfully juxtaposing the ominous and the beautiful is on full display.
In the two years since 2014’s elegiac, autobiographical “July”, Nadler has reconciled the heartbreak so often a catalyst for her songwriting. Turning her writing to more universal themes, Nadler dives deep into a surreal, apocalyptic dreamscape. Her lyrics touch upon the loneliness and despair of the characters that inhabit them. These muses are primal, fractured, disillusioned, delicate, and alone. They are the unified voice of this record, the titular “strangers.”
Once again partnered with July producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Black Mountain) Nadler has created an album equal in sonic quality to the apocalyptic lyrical tone that covers its 44 minutes. In places her voice and guitar play off subsonic synths, while elsewhere, a pulsing drumbeat launches the songs off into an intense, confrontational place.
FEWS –
Swedish / American four-piece FEWS have been making some serious waves ahead of their debut album. Specialising in propulsive, motoric noise-pop, producer Dan Carey (Bat For Lashes, Sexwitch, TOY, Kate Tempest et all) discovered the band via a mysterious Soundcloud link and promptly invited the band to his South London studio where debut single ‘Ill’ quickly followed on Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label.
Having joined the ranks of the Play It Again Sam label their own brand of malevolent post-punk continues to evolve and thrill with follow up singles ‘The Zoo’ and ‘100 Goosebumps’ that has seen the band bear resemblance to DIIV and Faust.
“Sonically charged post-punk that’s equal parts Interpol, DIIV, The Walkmen and A Place To Bury Strangers. Anthems for the disaffected in waiting”
The Fat Angel Sings 