AEROPHONE Sweet Suzie RARE '72 Rhodesian psych 45 HEAR

$

69

Oh, those crazy kids over at the Sweet Floral Albion website (RIP)!  No wonder they’re defunct – this is the kind of s&*t they used to pull – I remember years ago when they hyped the stuffing out of this 1972 single by Aerophone, “Sweet Sweet Suzie” b/w “Of Tomorrow,” then sent everyone off on the mad goose chase to actually…y’know…find one.  To like, actually be able to listen to and stuff, seeing that it didn’t even make their one single compilation CD.  Oh, but at least those Easybeats and Kevin Ayers and Gun tracks did – thanks, guys, those sure are hard to find!  Well, years and years later, this little Aerophone single turned out to be quite the slippery goose, to the point where I thought it might be a genuine red herring.  Then, finally, one showed up.  One, and only one, and this one’s it.  It helps to know that Aerophone wasn’t a British band at all, but were from South Africa (or possibly Rhodesia), and we all know how easy it is to find those original South African and Rhodesian pressings today.  It also helps to know that both sides are strong enough that most owners would probably keep it – especially “Of Tomorrow”, which pounds and slashes its way through 3 minutes of torrential heavy British-sounding psychedelia like Writing on the Wall’s “Power of the Picts” album.  This is relentless stuff, churning with a sinister black magic, a tortured Wyvern call fitted with thrashing, flame-spewing drums and chunky slabs of blood-curdling organ.  Too much to handle for the little girls who were still getting dreamy-eyed over Davy Jones, so they’re advised to head for the flipside, “Sweet Sweet Suzie,” which oozes with a stompin’, handclappin’ bubblepop sweetness that sounds like Andy Kim sitting in with the Monkees.   Pretty schizophrenic single, then, and with one side being super catchy bubblepop, and the other sounding like the war cries of a hellspawned Balrog, it’s impossible to tell what the real Aerophone sounded like.  But I can tell you this – in my 213 years of record collecting, this is still the only one I’ve seen.  Good thing too, because I was just about to make some pretty nasty overseas phone calls to a few former webmasters. 

Original 1972 pressing on the South African RPM label.  Vinyl looks great, but due to low-grade press, plays VG.  Small "X"s written on A-side label.  Comes with pic sleeve, which is real flimsy and in rough shape - most likely this was a Xerox of the original picture sleeve, unless they actually made pic sleeves this fragile in South Africa.  Since I've never seen another one of these in my life, I have nothing to compare it to.

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