Led by frontman and master songwriter Roddy Frame, Aztec Camera successfully turned indie- darling status into mainstream success when they signed with WEA in 1984. Taking inspiration from his own record collection, Frame set about recording a series of style-hopping albums, collaborating with his personal wish list of musical inspirations and producing a remarkable run of emotive, honest songs to rival any of his contemporaries. Admired and adored in equal measure, Roddy remains one of Scotland’s most gifted musical treasures. There are two ways of looking at this incomplete history of Roddy Frames as Aztec Camera. You can gaze at the contents – everything except for the band’s two Postcard Records singles and then High Land, Hard Rain, the album that established Frame as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation – and come to the conclusion that a career-spanning boxset without High Land, Hard Rain. But, without that record, Backwards & Forwards – The WEA Recordings 1984-1995 tells an equally fascinating tale.
The box set includes all five studio albums issued on WEA: Knife (1984, Love (1987), Stray (1990), Dreamland (1993) and Frestonia (1995). The only other Aztec Camera album – which is not included in this set – is the band’s 1983 debut High Land, Hard Rain (which was released on Rough Trade).
“Backwards and Forwards: The WEA Recordings 1984-1995″ is a forthcoming nine-CD box set that collects the music of Aztec Camera via five studio albums, B-sides, live recordings, remixes and rarities.
Each album on CD comes with bonus tracks, but on top of that are two further discs collecting remixes, B-sides and extra tracks. Additional CDs, In Concert 1984 and Live at Ronnie Scott’s complete this nine-disc collection. There are 112 tracks in total.
Demon Music previously released ‘casebound book’ deluxe editions of all six of the band’s albums back in 2012.
Backwards and Forwards: The WEA Recordings 1984-1995 is being released by Cherry Red. There is no word on remastering. It is out on 27th August 2021.
• DELUXE BOX SET COMPILING FIVE ALBUMS, SINGLES, B-SIDES, LIVE RECORDINGS, REMIXES, COMPILATION APPEARANCES AND VINYL-ONLY RARITIES.
• 112 TRACKS SPANNING THE BAND’S ELEVEN YEAR SPELL WITH WEA, INCLUDING MANY NEVER BEFORE ISSUED ON CD.
• FEATURING THE HITS ‘SOMEWHERE IN MY HEART’, ‘GOOD MORNING BRITAIN’, ‘DEEP & WIDE & TALL’, ‘ALL I NEED IS EVERYTHING’, AND MORE, ALONGSIDE LIVE RENDITIONS OF THE BAND’S PRE-WEA HIGHLIGHTS.
• INCLUDING COLLABORATIONS WITH JOE STRUMMER, EDWYN COLLINS, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO (YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA) AND MARK KNOPFLER.
• INCLUDES PROMOTIONAL RELEASE ONLY MATERIAL, THE ENTIRE LIVE AT RONNIE SCOTT’S RECORDING AND A VINYL ONLY INTERVIEW WITH AZTEC CAMERA FOUNDER AND MAINSTAY RODDY FRAME.
The Fat Angel Sings 