Friday, May 30, 2014

NZ Trading Company, straight outta... Memphis????



"What happens when two Māori, a Brit, and three Latin-Americans walk into a Chicago bar? They form a band, go to Memphis and record an album that mixes psychedelia with pop, jazz and rock. Then, the band promptly stops trading.

The New Zealand Trading Company album was released in the US in 1970, but only a few copies made it to New Zealand. On the back of the album the musicians stand beside the Mississippi River, resplendent in flared trousers and heavy sideburns. To get to Memphis, the members of the band took long, strange journeys. "

Via Audioculture, great piece of digging by Chris Bourke on this legendary US album with a NZ reference in the name, although the LP liner notes give away very little info to this mystery... 

"The back just lists the song titles, the composers, the producer, engineer and the address of the record company. The New Zealand Trading Company album came out on the Memphis label, a short-lived firm with its own studio down the road from the one in which Dusty Springfield sang of her preacher man and Elvis of suspicious minds. "




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