Posts Tagged ‘Rocket Recordings’

Album of the day: Annapurna Illusion – Life Is An Illusion

Posted on Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Praise for Annapurna Illusion‘s Life Is An Illusion from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: We first heard Annapurna Illusion on a split with looped psychedelic drifter High Wolf. The weird thing was that we discovered the guy in High Wolf as also the guy in AI, but his (?) side of the split ended up being one of our favorite jams for sure. So when we discover that Rocket was releasing a full length by ‘em, we were pretty excited.

And if anything, the new AI sounds like a perfect fit for Rocket, not sure if it was coincidental, or if AI whipped up some sort of space rock for the occasion, or Rocket heard this new spacier AI and knew they had to have it, hardly matters really, what matters is what comes out of the speakers when you set the needle in the groove. And what comes out is some super drugged out psychedelic mesmer, an even more minimal and abstract take on the Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo axis, the sounds more obviously looped, but layered and repeated and woven into sprawling stretches of murky and washed out, rhythmic space rock drift. Sort of.

The tracks never truly launch into total space rock, instead they hover right this side of it, creating tense druggy stretches of krautrocky ambience, and minimal psychedelia, simple motorik rhythms pulse within clouds of swirling effects and distorted looped guitars. A few of the tracks veer away from the space psych swirl, dipping into creeping organ driven dronescapes one second, and more abstract and laid back Spacemen 3 like dirgery the next, rife with effects and tribal percussion and swirly shoegaze guitars. But the finest moments, which do make up the bulk of the record, are when the band lock into that psychedelic spaciness, and unfurl epic expanses of drugged out, blissed out space-psych-loop hypno-drift.

So great. Our favorite thing on Rocket lately, along with Teeth Of The Sea’s Your Mercury lp (which we just got back in, too)… Super swank packaging, and pressed on see-through maroon vinyl.

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

Tags: Album of the day, Annapurna Illusion, Aquarius Records, High Wolf, Life is an Illusion, psychedelica, Rocket Recordings
Posted in 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended | No Comments »

Gnod & High Wolf (Annapurna Illusion’s Alter Ego) Collaborative Live Set on Soundcloud

Posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

To assist the currently available Annapurna Illusion – Life is an Illusion relaese, Rocket Recordings have posted this Soundcloud collaborative live set by Gnod & High Wolf (Annapurna Illusion’s alter ego). The gig was recorded in support of Teeth of the Sea’s ‘Your Mercury’ album Launch – in 22nd November ...read more

Album of the day: Gnod – Ingnodwetrust

Posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Praise for  Gnod‘s Ingnodwetrust from Scott’s Music Reviews: The UK drone psych rockers are back with a new full length record. The Middlesex split LP was released earlier this year and I reviewed that already but this is something quite different. The A side is one long track called Tony’s ...read more