Poem Rocket share "Lend-Lease" EP
LEND-LEASE—a rediscovered four-song EP—signals the rebirth of NYC’s Poem Rocket, a band that emerged from the East Village/Brooklyn L-Train axis to win critical acclaim and indie underground admiration from the early 90s into the mid 00s. With dark, conceptually-animated post-punk aggressiveness as much as wildly intelligent atypical melodic songwriting, Poem Rocket’s genetic helix of noise, art rock, caffeinated psych, and experimental pop was seen and heard on small-club stages across the US and acknowledged in Melody Maker (“Single of the Week”), CMJ (“Jackpot!”), Alternative Press (“Top 50 albums of 2000”), The Wire, and Pitchfork, among many music publications of the day. And though it’s a 25-year-old recording, Lend-Lease is brand-new to everyone except the band, and certain to catch the attention of select, savvy, and intelligent music fans and audiophiles who already know of Poem Rocket, as well as those who are just now stumbling upon them for the first time.
Completed in 1999, Poem Rocket’s LEND-LEASE was intended to precede their double-CD Invasion! But between psychogeography and Invasion!—both on Chicago’s avant jazz and rock label, Atavistic—Lend-Lease was temporarily set aside, unintentionally shelved, and all but forgotten. San Diego’s Silver Girl Records resurrects this 1999 session, a resurrection that coincides with Poem Rocket’s return to live performance with a line-up that matches the EP’s: Viz. founders and long-time collaborators Michael Peters and Sandra Gardner (husband and wife), as well as mainstay drummer Peter Gordon and guitarist Mike Knowlton (Unlettered), both childhood friends and members of Gapeseed (also on Silver Girl). With this line-up, Poem Rocket’s plans for the future include live performances and new recordings in 2025. An invitation to play the indie rock festival Dromfest in the late summer of 2024, which has already received attention and coverage, as well as the recovery of this almost forgotten EP, are two of the main catalysts re-activating the creative, gravitational pull within this remarkable yet unsung band.
As for the EP itself, the four songs—"Depth Charge,” “Vera Shore,” “Black Freighter Contraband,” and “A.R.P. (Air Raid Protection)—are accessible across all digital streaming platforms. The lead video of the Lend-Lease EP, “Depth Charge,” is available on YouTube. The EP also appears in a limited-edition, 180-gram, clear-vinyl 12” format, wrapped inside a graphically stunning gatefold sleeve. A 24-page booklet accompanying the limited-edition vinyl includes photos, liner notes, and an autobiographical exploration of the utopian abstractions that comprise Invasion! and the seemingly literal historical subject matter animating Lend-Lease. This essay-like exploration addresses fascism, revealing the imagination’s role in navigating the deeper tidal currents ebbing and flowing from the historical past to an ethical future. Surface and depth? Melodic intrigue and lyrical invention? Paradoxically heavy but atmospheric dynamics? Tangled in enigmas, Poem Rocket’s Lend-Lease could be its most conceptual and its most literal release to date. All of Poem Rocket’s transcendent attributes and aesthetics are audible on Lend-Lease. As their back catalog congeals around this EP, a two-way portal to the past and the future has opened time up, exposing it to space. It’s okay to wonder why Poem Rocket might be one of the best-kept secrets of the 90s underground music scene. And to think this EP was almost lost?
“... an interior travelogue twisting the band’s rich, dramatic vocal style with the musicality of White Album-era Beatles, the drone of Joy Division and a love for classic concept albums and Morricone soundtracks.” — The Big Takeover
“Poem Rocket, in splitting their attentions between little details and enormous designs, practice a kind of musical botany. Imagine songs as tall as tress, with even the tiniest green pores—upon the smallest leaf which dangles from the most remote branch—elaborately, graphically planned. As any great artists, they are trying to do the work of the gods.” — Alternative Press
“Stick the thing in a black turtleneck, and you’ve got the hippest record of the year … ”— Pitchfork
“... In an ideal world, Cypress Hill would sample “The Furry Evil Bird” and we'd have the real-deal avant-garde head-fuck pile-up we all want. … And I was told America was dead.” — Melody Maker
"Borderline Kraut rock, mixed with downtown-N.Y.C., mid-’80s neo-noise, chased down with a pop sensibility. Sound revolting? Try again. … I can’t get the fucking thing out of my head … unexpectedly great." — Magnet
"Poem Rocket has been plying its highly individual brand of electroacoustic, post-punk art pop for nearly 15 years ... Sonic reference points? Tough one, since this bunch doesn't really sound like much else." — Chronogram
