News: Rocket Records reissues Woodoo and Lemon

As always, Rocket Records continues to reissue some of the most obscure records from Finland (I keep hoping for Nimbus and Sepi Kuu). Today's announcement are two albums that were originally on the UFO label.

For Woodoo, which we featured in December of 2009, my review stated: "Terribly rare album from Finnish rock-jazz-vocal group. Lots of hand percussion drives the rhythms while sax takes the lead lines. Vocals in Finnish dominate. This one has a nice groove to it, despite the heavy reliance on vocals. Can be trance inducing. Short album, well under 30 minutes. Worth seeking out for a few listens."

Apparently this was reissued about a week ago, so you should be able to order it direct from Finland now.

As well, Rocket also plans on reissuing the Lemon "Vanha Vakaa" record in September. Now here's a band that lives up to its name! I compared them to The Partridge Family - but that's coming from my preference for underground progressive rock music. I'm sure the album has many fans back at home.

In any case, it's just great to see Rocket Records cruising along!

Woodoo, Finland ***REISSUED***

Taikakulkunen. 1971 UFO

***Reissued by Rocket Records in 2011

Very rare album from Finnish rock-jazz-vocal group. Lots of hand percussion drives the rhythms while sax takes the lead lines. Vocals in Finnish dominate. This one has a nice groove to it, despite the heavy reliance on vocals. Can be trance inducing. Short album, well under 30 minutes. 

Priority: none

12/11/09 (new entry); 8/31/11 (complete)

Eider Stellaire, France ***REISSUED***

Eider Stellaire. 1981 K001 *** Reissued by Soleil Zeuhl, August 2011 ***

Eider Stellaire. 1986 K002

Moved to UMR

Priority: 1 (for the debut)
Priority: none (for the second). Not calling for a reissue on this title.

5/29/09 (new entry); 8/29/11 (complete)

News: Eider Stellaire finally being reissued on CD!!!

To say it's been a slow summer on the CD reissue front would be an understatement. We wrapped up April and May with a smattering of exciting announcements. And then it pretty much died. Until this morning. It appears that Alain at Soleil Zeuhl has finally succeeded in getting this beauty out into the open market, after many years of trying. Congratulations to everyone involved! This is a BIG Priority 1 for me (and many others), and will most certainly prove to be a popular reissue.

This is a future announcement. No release date as of yet.

Here's the blurb from Shiny Beast this morning:

"EIDER STELLAIRE - EIDER STELLAIRE (CD/SOLEIL ZEUHL)Christian Vander's post-Magma band Eider Stellaire frequently functioned as the opening act for Magma's concerts in the late '70s and early '80s. This made perfect sense since both bands shared the same sources of inspiration, f.i. the European 20th century classical composers (Bartok, Stravinsky, Orff) and the energy of rock music. Also notable were the importance of the rhythm section and mysterious, wordless female vocals. Eider Stellaire's excellent self titled album from 1981 is still regarded as a masterpiece from the French progressive era and now it's reissued on CD, including a superb 10 minute alternate version of 'Nihil' as a bonus."

Rancid Poultry, England (Part 2)

Rancid Riffs. 1985 Land of Yrx
Leyline Lords of the Motorway Web. 1986 Land of Yrx
Midnight Disendowed. 1986 Land of Yrx
* Delicate Creatures. 1986 Land of Yrx
* Rock 'N' Roll Won't Never Die! 1987 Poultry Productions
* Controlled Exposure. 1989 Poultry Productions
* Lungs Full of Lead (2xMC, 1989) Poultry Productions
HTIABR! 1990 Poultry Productions
* Live In Leads (But Steve Doesn't). 1992 Poultry Productions
* Musicide 19??. ???
* Qaotic Pestilgence 1992. Unreleased

Qaotic Pestigence moved to UMR

All released on cassette originally.
* - Are the ones I've personally heard.

This is probably the single largest entry in the CDRWL, if the sole criteria is number of albums not reissued. I first heard of Rancid Poultry via Audion Magazine in the late 1980s, and picked up Controlled Exposure through their Ultima Thule mail order channel not long after it was released. We featured this album a little over a year ago. According to the Freeman's, Controlled Exposure was probably their most accomplished work, and now after having devoured 6 other titles (including a double album), I would have to agree with their original assessment.

As mentioned back in late January, The Alaskan Connection had a few of these on hand as well to share with me. I knew by the sheer volume of releases, and the type of music that Rancid Poultry play, it would take me some time to fully immerse myself into these recordings (I predicted then that it would probably be the summer before I completed them - and here we are). So I've finally finished them all. Whew! Exhausting is the only word I can come up with to describe the experience.

My review for Controlled Exposure basically stated: "Rancid Poultry came out of the 1980s festival scene, but arrived with some influences out of the industrial movement... ...Good raucous space rock - with some interesting screamed vocals." And that more or less describes all the albums listed here. One correction though to my original review: Even though the band came from the festival scene era, I don't believe they were an actual live act performing at the festivals. I could be wrong, but my impression based on reports is they were more of a "city band" who played in and around small clubs in England.

There's a little bit of history on Rancid Poultry from the Land of Yrx page, which gives us insight into their beginnings (go to the bottom of the linked page). I've only heard Delicate Creatures from this phase of the band, but based on that I think I can safely presume the first 3 albums are not going to be for me I'm afraid. This is Rancid Poultry at their most experimental and noisy, with dare I say, a rancid 80's computer drum sound. By the time of Rock 'N' Roll Will Never Die, the band is clearly leaning in a space rock direction, with more emphasis on traditional guitar, bass, drum jamming and less of the keyboard knob twiddling. It's still quite primitive though. After this comes their landmark Controlled Exposure tape, and we hear a group more focused, with actual compositions mixed in with the jams. Lungs Full of Lead is a sprawling mess of industrial, space rock, progressive and experimentalism. If you want to gain the full Rancid Poultry experience, this may be a good introduction, though it can be frustrating for those of us with (admittedly) more narrow tastes. By 1992, Live in Leads demonstrates a much more professional band, though the bootleg quality of the recording itself leaves much to be desired. As for Musicide and Qaotic Pestilence, there's absolutely no data I can find on them, beyond the covers the AC provided me. Based on sound alone, I'd hazard a guess that Musicide comes after Lungs Full of Lead - though again the recording is a bit primitive. But musically very interesting. Of all the albums listed here, Qaotic Pestilence is probably the closest to Controlled Exposure, except there are no vocals here. This may indeed be the most fully realized Rancid Poultry album I've heard to date. I would suspect this to be an early 90's release.

The band continued on as the prpGROUP (Post Rancid Poultry). You can check them out here. It appears this band has also been quite prolific, with a pile of CD-R's and at least one actual CD. More info here. Plus some reviews of the prpGROUP at Aural Innovations. I've not heard any of these albums as of this writing.

Priority: 3