| Rocket Girl Records | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1997 |
| Founder | Vinita Joshi |
| Genre | Indie rock, Art Rock, alt country, space rock, dream pop, shoegaze |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Location | London |
| Official Website | http://www.rocketgirl.co.uk/ |
Rocket Girl is a London-based independent record label started up by Vinita Joshi in 1997. The label has an ecletic mix of alternative acts ranging from eletronica, alt-country, ambient and indie, and has released records by Robin Guthrie, God Is an Astronaut, Ulrich Schnauss and others.
Before starting Rocket Girl, Vinita had previously been involved in running both Cheree and Che record labels, releasing records by The Telescopes, The Tindersticks, Bark Psychosis and Disco Inferno.
Che Records, an offshoot label founded by Vinita and Nick Allport, was responsible for releasing the music of Essex etherealists, Disco Inferno, with a roster which also included the Tindersticks, Backwater, Füxa, and Slipstream, as well as giving birth to a Top 40 hit single by Urusei Yatsura, 1997's "Hello Tiger", which reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart.[1][1]
In 1997 Vinita decided to set up her own label, and its first release was a single by the band Silver Apples, 'Hitherto'. The label continued to grow with a diverse rooster and encouraged cross-pollination between its artists, most notably the 1998 7” single collaboration between Low (band) / Transient Waves / Piano Magic (‘Sleep at the Bottom’), and 2000’s EP ‘Add N to Fu(x)a’. Hot on the heels of the Silver Apples / Windy & Carl 7”, 1998 also saw the release of Rocket Girl’s first full-length album – ‘A Tribute to Spacemen 3’ – a celebration of the pioneers of drone, with offerings from (the then largely unknown) Mogwai, Arab Strap, Piano Magic, and Low, among others.
Spring 2001 heralded the release of the double CD ‘A Rocket Girl Compilation’. As well as handling Jeepster Records’ mail catalogue (home of Belle & Sebastian), Vinita also has a sub-publishing deal with Rykodisc, and has been involved with a number of record labels throughout the years, including Bella Union, and One Little Indian. In 2001, the label won one of four Young Music Professional Awards, and enjoyed television exposure being the focus of an entire episode of the BBC series ‘Hit & Miss – An A-Z of the music industry’. The label has also been profiled in publications as far a field as Japan (Afterhours), USA (Magnet), Spain, France and many others.
Rocket Girl has also established a number of off-shoot labels – Indus Sonica, which reissued Piano Magic’s seminal debut ‘Popular Mechanics’, catering for connoisseurs of everything electronic; and Mandita, home to M.A.S.S – both of which remain under the Rocket Girl banner. Today, Rocket Girl remains a true labour of love for Vinita. While continuing to manage artists as well as labels (including ambient impresario Ulrich Schnauss, as well as PASK, the label responsible for releasing Kevin Shields and Patti Smith’s 2008 aural homage to Robert Mapplethorpe, ‘The Coral Sea’.
Late in 2010 the label signed the London based band Drugstore, and has a number of new releases planned for 2011.