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2LP
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LAUNCH 112LP
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Double LP version. Alive At Roadburn is Gothenburg based Hills' third album with Rocket Recordings. Hot off the Swedish psychedelia revival of the past few years and after their hailed 2015 album Frid (LAUNCH 079CD), Hills connect the dots to their country's rich and intoxicating past with a handful of new sepia-toned tunes. Like their predecessors unholy trinity of Pärson Sound, International Harvester, and Träd Gräs Och Stenar, Hills penchant to stretch out beyond, performing what feels like openly casual exhortations into intricate Eastern tones and primal hypnotic rhythms. These four tracks sit deeply buried in oblivion, bones, skin, sweat, grooved with fearless intensity with no diminution of the interplay, spontaneity, and feeling onstage, the band are entombed in mantric repetition while the vapor trail of The Byrds' (Untitled) epic; "Eight Miles High" descends into an Elysian Field, where the dead enjoy happy tranquility, until they come to life and rise up again.
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CD
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LAUNCH 112CD
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Alive At Roadburn is Gothenburg based Hills' third album with Rocket Recordings. Hot off the Swedish psychedelia revival of the past few years and after their hailed 2015 album Frid (LAUNCH 079CD), Hills connect the dots to their country's rich and intoxicating past with a handful of new sepia-toned tunes. Like their predecessors unholy trinity of Pärson Sound, International Harvester, and Träd Gräs Och Stenar, Hills penchant to stretch out beyond, performing what feels like openly casual exhortations into intricate Eastern tones and primal hypnotic rhythms. These four tracks sit deeply buried in oblivion, bones, skin, sweat, grooved with fearless intensity with no diminution of the interplay, spontaneity, and feeling onstage, the band are entombed in mantric repetition while the vapor trail of The Byrds' (Untitled) epic; "Eight Miles High" descends into an Elysian Field, where the dead enjoy happy tranquility, until they come to life and rise up again.
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CD
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LAUNCH 079CD
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Third-eye visionaries Hills present their third opus, a dizzying journey that traverses through the band's origins and beyond to new dimensions. The Gothenburg, Sweden-based band have released two full-length albums since forming in 2006, the second of which, 2011's Master Sleeps, saw a vinyl outing on Rocket in 2013 (LAUNCH 061LP). Part of a rich local scene that also includes friends and Rocket Recordings label-mates Goat, they form the next chapter in a tradition of Swedish psychedelia that found its origins in late-'60s and early-'70s freakouts and mind-melts by the likes of Baby Grandmothers and Älgarnas Trädgård -- not to mention the unholy trinity of Pärson Sound, International Harvester, and Träd, Gräs och Stenar -- before being developed by the likes of The Spacious Mind and Dungen around the turn of the millennium. These inspirations make their mark on Frid by journeying inward, via mantric repetition and hip-shaking pulsations -- as on the ten-minute monolith "Och Solen Sänkte Sig Röd" -- yet they can also lurch into the unknown via the fuzz/wah odysseys of the aptly-monikered "National Drone" and the ceremonial exhortations of the closing "Death Will Find a Way." As they also showed at a rare and spellbinding appearance at the 2014 Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, Hills have landed on a rich and intoxicating sound that sidesteps the clichés and humdrum stylistic foibles that often plague modern-day psych, and, in the process, breathed new life into an approach that can sometimes seem in danger of appearing redundant through lack of imagination. Frid crystallizes everything that makes these Scandinavian satyrs stand out from the global herd: adventurous experimentation and fearless hallucinatory intensity, rendered with brass-knuckle fortitude. The end result is 38 minutes that translate into a feast for seasoned crate-diggers and fresh-faced converts alike.
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LP
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LAUNCH 061LP
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Hills are a three-piece band based in Gothenburg and Master Sleeps was their immediately sold-out second album, originally released on a small Swedish label in 2011. Rocket are proud to present a re-release of this great psych classic, with stunning new sleeve artwork. Master Sleeps draws its inspiration from some of the great bands of the late '60s and early '70s like Can, Amon Düül, and A.R. & Machines. Also you can hear the influence of native Swedish legends like International Harvester, Pärson Sound, and Trad Gras Och Stenar. But unlike a lot of the current over-saturated scene of psych bands that mine their '60s and '70s record collections, Hills manage to sound contemporary and relevant in 2013. They are currently putting the finishing touches to their third album which will be released by Rocket in 2014, so this reissue of Master Sleeps is a nice taster of what to expect from the next installment from this great band. Includes download code.
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