GNOD / SMOTE / THE SHITS

Extra Terrestrial Promotions & Velvet Echoes are proud to present a showcase of one of their favourite independent labels; Rocket Recordings, at one of their favourite indpendent venues; Strange Brew, and featuring the mighty GNOD, SMOTE & THE SHITS. For anyone interested in loud and experimental noise, these are three of the countries finest acts specialised in the purveyance of such racket!

GNOD

Since their inception, Gnod’s musical trajectory has been one of constant fluctuation borne out of an incessant need to discover new sonic worlds. Beginning life as a shamanic drone ensemble, at times fitting up to 15 members on stage, these early rituals informed the core ideals that have come to define the group in their years of activity; community and trance-inducing repetition. Throughout a discography that has amassed dozens of CD-R’s, cassettes and vinyls for labels like Rocket Recordings, Trensmat, Krokodilo (Blackest Ever Black) and their own Tesla Tapes imprint, a restless yet organic need mutate their music into new realms has had critics clawing for comparative touch stones. Acts as far ranging as Hawkwind, Popul Vuh, Pan Sonic, Sunburned Hand of the Man and Pharaoh Sanders have all been referenced in attempt to pinpoint their output, one that has historically never aped any genre but with each record furthered their own unique place in truly independent music. It is the exact same dedication to the live arena that has seen Gnod become one of the most celebrated live bands in the UK and secured them multiple tours and festival appearances throughout Europe. In these times of cash in hand ‘glory days’ reunions and bands simply rehashing their recorded material pitch perfect live, Gnod are a stark and welcome anomaly. Already moving on from the barley released and universally acclaimed epic ‘Infinity Machines’, the current live incarnation of the band is characterised by a crushing, cataclysmic new protest music whose call to arms gravitas offers a meaningful defiance to Cameron’s Austerity Britain. Gnod have taken their very namesake and charged it with bludgeoning new edge that is as euphoric as it is nihilistic. It is one that stridently attests to the group’s spiritual center, one of community that is inclusive and respectful of its audience yet will never placate to their expectations. Instead, Gnod offer a gateway to an aural black hole and along with firm guiding hand, the opportunity to dive head and body first into a powerfully new psychedelic maelstrom full of possibilities.

SMOTE

In the world of Smote, going further out means going inward. Less a metaphysical journey into inner space, more a physical journey into the ground itself, converging with its roots and vibrations. What’s more, a journey right to the heart of its principal architect’s daily experience. 

Daniel Foggin has spent the majority of his adult life working as a landscape gardener, frequently pursuing his trade in conditions of either baking heat or freezing cold and, as he puts it “more often covered in mud than not”. Yet the primal, meditative aspects of this work, the act of communing with nature, its histories and its depths have fuelled his art on a profound level. As Daniel himself relates; “I think the music is a direct reflection of this feeling that I haven’t quite managed to define yet, it is dirty and hard but there is an overwhelming comfort to it.” 

Smote’s fifth release for Rocket Recordings, and their deepest, most fully realised to date, Songs From The Free House is testimony to this. Forged from repetition and mantric intensity and possessed of formidable psychic fortitude, this album prove that the only retro-chic Smote indulge in is liable to go back several centuries. The megalithic monomania of last year’s A Grand Stream set a formidable precedent, and Smote’s live shows in its wake have gradually built a reputation as visionary seers building audial monuments by cranked amplification and atmospheric intensity alike. Yet these five gnostic serenades offer portals and paradigms anew.

THE SHITS