R.I.P. AZTEC MUSIC
What a great reissue label with fabulous packaging and liner notes on each release. I'd never heard a lot of those records. I'd heard tracks by
Buffalo, Kahvas Jute, Spectrum, Tamam Shud, Madder Lake etc. from the fantastic
Golden Miles Comp on Raven Records.
But it took Aztec to reissue the full LPs. It made it cheap to hear
Coloured Balls (I wasn't gonna fork out $100s of dollars for these 2nd hand).
Buffalo's 2nd and 3rd LPs are particular faves
Volcanic Rock and
Only Want You For Your Body. I couldn't believe that every 2nd suburban household didn't have copies of these.
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| Buffalo: The original hipsters. |
The cultural cringe is still in full effect in Australia.
Aztec helped redress the balance a little. The
X and
Died Pretty reissues were great. Great stuff from the 60s as well,
The Masters Apprentices and
The Twilights. The 70s was their thing though and I guess the biggest revelations for me were the reissues of
Tamam Shud's
Goolutionites and The Real People and
Kahvas Jute's
Wide Open. Clinton Walker in
The Next Thing pretty much wrote off everything Australia produced including
AC/DC until punk arrived, how wrong he was! (didn't he end up writing a book about Bon Scott?! Fuckin twat). I was amazed at these 2 incredibly unique rock statements from early 70s Sydney, Australia. So it's a shame that
Aztec has died. I thought I still had much to learn from them.
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| Gold |
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| apocalyptic gold |
